An Ode To The Flowers That Say, Easy Does It

I got a massage on Saturday, and it was just what I needed. Since, I’ve been twisting to crack my back, first the left and then the right side. I can feel knots unravel. I can feel myself unravel. Slowly, I’ve returned to my exercise routine. Months without any of it, and my body gets sore from a swift walk, my legs are asking to be rolled, my hamstrings dare me to return to pilates and test their strength. 

I’m getting my body in check, but my mind is still full and mushy, so bear with me.The fogginess in my brain could be allergies, or it could be the pieces of a puzzle clicking back into place. 

I stare at the flowers as some mark of time and beauty, to disregard the complex…

A star to look towards, if you will. It’s been scientifically proven that they make you feel better. In a Vogue piece last year they highlighted,

“… during the COVID-19 pandemic, people are drawn to them more than ever. Google searches for “flower delivery” doubled from March 2019 to March 2020, and Pinterest found searches for “flower boxes” were up 408 percent year over year. Flowers aren’t essential, but they’re emotional: as society capsizes around us, we search for even the smallest slivers of joys.”

I’ve been rewarding myself with expensive bouquets. It is one of my favorite pick-me-ups any day of the week, at any hour, but especially on Saturdays, after the farmers market, and before cleaning the house. Although, last week, while upstate, we purchased a small bouquet of farm-fresh, hand-cut flowers for half the cost, and drove them back home, realizing how marvelous it was to get such a gorgeous bouquet, created with someone’s hands, at such a low cost. “If only…” or,  “We could we kept starting each sentence on the ride back to Brooklyn, imagining a life in which that was always possible. 

The beauty for the cost was what astounded us the most, I believe. It made me eager to come home and edit photographs I styled and shot of some Trader Joe’s flowers a few weeks ago.. The point, more or less then, was to inspire you that $30 could get you a few vases’ worth. But as always, I figured out in the waiting, the message was far deeper. 

The upstate bouquet made it back to Brooklyn and  stayed in its vase for well over a week. It brought me joy as it wilted and shed all over the dining room table. When I saw them, I noticed that each pause of admiration kept my mind present with them. “Oh, that was last week. Look how they’re drying so beautifully,” I would say to myself. When the house wasn’t clean, the flowers remained a bright spot. And this morning, as I removed them from their water, poured it down the drain, and put the flowers in the compost, I remembered once more, it was time to return here and show you some flowers. 

Aren’t these flowers so beautiful? If you have $30 and are near a Trader Joe’s (and not near your very own flower farmer), please go and buy some, create some bouquets with your hands, and watch how they change over time. It’s all beautiful.. 

Easy does it. 

Any flowers in your life sending you messages, lately?