Category: flowers

Happy Spring!

The first day of spring already! It’s a rainy start to the season here, but this weekend is shaping up to be absolutely gorgeous. I’m itching to get outside, get dirty, start that seemingly never-ending yard clean-up before hitting the garden centers and bringing home as many colorful flowers as I can carry.

It’s a lot of work, but I look forward to it every year. I like watching the yard transform, one section at a time, as we spend time in it and give it some love. Every now and then, while we’re working in the yard, someone walking by will stop to tell us how cute our house is or how nice our yard is, and it makes my heart and head swell with pride. We put a lot into our home, and it’s cool when someone else enjoys it, too.

Happy first day of spring!

The Rose Picture

I was running late for work this morning (what’s new?), so I kissed my husband good-bye, told my cat to be good, and rushed out the door. Along our front walkway, I couldn’t help but notice the roses blooming in our flower bed, with pink, white, and coral roses begging me to stop and admire them. At the end of the walkway, one spot in particular captured my attention, a stem so full of coral colored rose blooms that the branch was leaning over, and the bright flowers against a blue lantern in the flower bed were irresistible.

I wanted a picture. My arms were full, though, with my tote bag, my lunch box, and my water cup, and I didn’t have a free hand to dig out my phone. Plus I was already going to be late. So I simply sighed and rushed to my car without getting that picture.

Later, I was buried in emails at work when I got a text message from my husband. He said he wanted to send me some flower pictures, since our roses were showing off. He sent me a handful of photos of our roses, all different colors, and the very last one was the branch of coral colored rose blooms against the blue lantern that had stopped me in my tracks that morning.

I like that picture even more because that rose captured his attention the same as mine, and that he liked it enough to send the picture to me. I like that we both were drawn in by the same flowers. And above all, I love knowing that when I get home this evening and walk by that rose on the way to the front porch, he will be waiting for me, just on the other side of that door.

Get Lost

This made me smile, because I know exactly what it means.

My father was an avid gardener: you name it, he grew it, from strawberries, to an apple tree, to berries, to a large vegetable garden. I remember sunflowers taller than me when I was little. They seemed so huge. I remember his ivy, his daffodils, his lilacs.

To this day, I love plants. My husband and I have filled every viable spot in the house with plants, and I always have cuttings rooting in a glass on a side table here, a windowsill there. Outdoors, we have flower beds that we coddle every weekend.

It’s hard work. I can’t lie about that. Some days, it’s so hot, so humid, and I question my sanity, being out there, working away, drenched in sweat. But I know why I keep doing it. At some point, without realizing it, without even meaning to, I get lost in it, streaked with dirt, in a rhythm of digging and pulling and trimming and cutting. It’s hard work, but it’s peaceful, because I am a part of it, at one with it all: with the plants, with nature, with the entire beautiful cycle.

I have several hobbies, and my husband does too. I see him get lost in a similar way. When he is drawing, he gets absorbed in the paper and pencil, and when he is really into it, completely engrossed, his hand and the pencil and his drawing are all one, flowing and working and creating together.

I guess that’s why I love it so much when we work in the yard together, because it’s something that we both enjoy so much, and we can share it with each other, getting lost in it with one another. Even if we are working on different things, we wander over to check in with each other, splash each other with the hose (by “accident”), lend a hand, or just admire each other’s work.

This weekend is going to be scorching, but I already know we will both find ourselves in the yard anyway: getting lost, getting found, and circling right back to each other — where we belong.

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