The Florist + Entries from my Notebook

This one is from the heart.

Sep 12, 2024

The Florist

The guest to the florist shop on this simple Monday was, among many things, a grandson, living at a distance. He wanted a special arrangement sent to the person who, among many things, was his grandfather. His grandfather’s mind had long since abandoned itself, but what the old fellow lacked in recollection, he made up for with warmth: a man with a sourdough nose, low earlobes, and a few strands of cirrus clouds for hair. He regularly sat on the back patio of the assisted living center, watching the world pass by.

The grandson entered the florist’s shop, and his eyes filled with green. Everywhere he looked were plants in easy bloom—vines twirling up little lattices and flowers singing their colors with vibrato. A small bell rang when he’d opened the door, and now he heard the florist call for him to come to the back room. He went. The abundance of green was replaced by stacks of seeds, arranged in some taxonomy beyond his understanding.

This florist kept the store stocked with the expected floriculture, but her true service, the one for which she was known, and which this young man had come, had to do with planning and planting instead of cutting and tying. This florist resurfaced the past. All she needed was a retelling of a memory and a small picture of the person the gift would be sent to. She’d place seeds on a table between herself and the guest in the comfortable, candlelit room. The florist would ask questions. The guest would speak. She’d open her heart to listen.

Something about her kindness reassured every sacred detail from this young man’s heart. The words travelled off his lips, floated across the air, until settling over the seeds which absorbed the memory’s emotional hues. After he finished, the florist gathered the little seeds in her hands, and together they walked to another room where they scooped dirt into a clay pot. Partway through, he put in a picture of his grandpa and filled it over. Once the pot was full, the florist gently guided the young man’s hands in her own, leading his thumb to push its print into the earth, making a small cocoon for the seeds. The hole was covered. Tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped into the pot: the first bit of water for the seeds now safekeeping everything.

❦❦❦

It took the old man a bit to notice the pot on his patio, but he tended to it generously, leaving notes for himself so as not to overwater it. After a few weeks, sure as magic itself, tendrils stretched, buds unbundled, and gorgeous flowers bloomed. The morning it happened, it was obvious. They were the most beautiful flowers he had seen. He picked up the pot and lowered his old face close to the petals and nectaries to gently inhale. With the subtle, sweet smell came a memory, a trickle from time that resurrected into his mind, a moment long ago forgotten that was once a sustaining current through his darkest times. Two birds that had been singing on a branch, floated down, flitted onto the railing, and watched the old man sit in his rocker, eyes closed, more at home than he’d been in a long time.

Old Journal & Old Yearbooks

My mom kept a journal for me before I could sit up on my own. She regularly updated it with little facts about my growth: my first and soon-to-be frequent words, the outline of my hand, the toys I got for Christmas. I recently went home and brought back some of my keepsakes boxes. The journal was in it.

It’s been a treasure to read through it, to get to know the parts of me lost to time, the parts of me that my mom remembers and that I’ll only know secondhand. It’s a treasure because by reading it, I get to know my mother as the mother of little me. The journal shows what she cared about and focused on.

My high school yearbooks were in the boxes I brought back. I flipped through the back pages that friends signed and wrote me notes. Reading what old friends said brought into my heart a feeling of gratitude. So much of who I am and the blessings and joy I feel come from the people that have been in my life. It’s bittersweet that the tides of life draw people toward various lands and paths, that people who I spent most days with are now years and states and countries away.

What a strange kind of beautiful it is that life weaves us together and apart, that who we are is made by the people long gone and others soon to come.

My friends from years ago will likely never read this, but it’s a thank you nonetheless.

August Entries from My Notebook

Index of Smiles (August 27th-29th):

Someone smiled in a way that reminded me of an acquaintance of mine. This led me down a little curiosity, a making of a small index of smiles. This may become a growing list, or it may rest with these few:

The Eye Smile — When you look at someone after you both witness the same thing and smile with your eyes because you’ve shared the same thought.
Sunrise Smile — This smile is thoroughly sincere. It curves slowly, not rushed. The dawning of an emotion. The person is truly happy to see you.
The Sad Smile that is a Hug — You see your friend that just had something sad happen in their life. The smile is a soft “hi” mixed with “tell me anything or nothing” followed up with “you can just be and I’ll be here with you.”
Reverb Smile — Comes on strong and lowers slowly, naturally. You’re not conscious of it changing. The happiness just lasts and your mood lifts to meet it.

From August 16th:

I think it’s true that the more significant a moment in your life, the stronger of a hold it has on your future. People and places and circumstances seem to me of having a way of stretching a hand from the past into the present, turning my head to look back to where I came from. Sometimes it fills me with longing, but most of the time it fills me with questions. I look back at decisions I made and wonder what it would be like if I had done something else. It’s like a nostalgic daydream for a life I’ll never, but could have had. I wonder if there’s a word for that: missing the life you didn’t choose.

From August 25th:

Sunlight before screenlight has been a good idea. Especially on mornings like this that are cool. Yesterday I was thinking about how it’s probably better/more effective to fill your life with good than to just remove the bad. Filling with good is a one-step process. Removing the bad results in emptiness which needs to be filled. (It’s usually filled by regression back into the bad.)

I’d rather my life be filled with silence than meaningless noise. The silence might be the soil from which beauty grows; noise may prove the force that muffles it.