Flowers and fruit bowls
I like to buy myself flowers at the grocery store. Not too often, I like it to feel indulgent. This is the height of adultiness for me.
We didn’t keep fresh flowers in my house growing up. My stepdad dutifully sent my mom a dozen red roses each birthday, anniversary, and the like. Sometimes they’d stay on her desk at work and sometimes she’d bring them home. But they weren’t an everyday kind of thing.
As I write this, I’m looking at the bouquet I bought last weekend at Whole Foods. The rose petals are crispy, brown at the edges. I’m not quite sophisticated enough to know the names of the other blooms, but they too are looking dry, petals and leaves curling in on themselves. The water, which I replenished a few days ago, is now murky and stagnant. The vase sits next to a fruit bowl, which the remnants of a bag of clementines call home. This, too, is the height of adultiness for me. We didn’t have a fruit bowl growing up.
Usually I leave the vase on the dining table and that’s that. An extra guest at dinner. But in the spirit of the new year, and the realization that I bought these to enjoy, and I’m going to milk every last smile out of them.
When I practice YouTube yoga in the living room (one short step from the dining table), the vase moves to the coffee table so I can see it behind my laptop. When I set myself up to write for ten minutes in the morning, the bouquet again sits behind my laptop, beside a candle and a few pretty rocks/crystals.
Why not have beautiful things?
For a long time, I didn’t see the point in surrounding myself with beautiful things. Who was I trying to impress, myself? And I guess it’s thanks to therapy and work I’ve done on self development, that I understand I can have beauty for beauty’s sake. My environment impacts my mindset. My mindset impacts my experience. My experience influences my emotions. Life is every single moment, not just the ones we’re anxiously preparing for.
I’ll reluctantly bundle up today and return to the grocery store. I’ll walk past the floral arrangements and fantasize about buying one. Lilies? Spray roses? Dried lavender? I’ll remember last week’s bouquet still in its vase on the dining table, giving off that sweet scent of decay, a life well-lived. I’ll move along, happy enough with taking a moment to, if not smell, at least look at the flowers.
