Burning Daisies

It's that day of the year again. Boys go crazy, girls go crazy, parents too. Now, you don't probably know what I'm talking about, no, it's not Christmas or Valentines, Passover neither, it's Daisies Day, and I absolutely hate it.

Here in Springlake people live like it's a fairytale, everything is cottagecore, it's a small village in the countryside, you see, every house has plants of every kind, we have a river and women of old age get to wear flower crowns. Me? well I bake bread with meemaw, Lavender bread. I've been living with my grandma since mother died, about dad, never met him, meemaw said he knocked up mom and then left with a flight attendant, meemaw is very sweet but she hopes he died in a crash, she always laughs after saying that, I laugh too. My mom gets one of my Daisies each year, she always loved Daisies Day, but her favorite flowers were Sunflowers, so I give her Sunflowers each Tuesday and Daisies once a year. Meemaw's new husband grows lemons, so sometimes we bake Lavender and Lemon bread, our best-selling.

About Daisies? They were actually my favorite flower, long time ago. When I was a little girl, well I still am a little, let me correct myself. When I was younger and mom was alive, I'd look out my bedroom window and see this big tree outside my house, I wanted to grow as big, I wanted to be tall and strong, like that Mango tree, but then, almost noticed, a Daisy growing just beside the big tree, it was just a little dot at the feet of the tree, mom loved that little part of sunshine, the tree somehow never caught her attention, it was that particular white spot in the grass that gave her joy. Now, I know I'll never grow as tall as that tree, but perhaps I'll be like that stubborn Daisy. Anyways, Daisies Day is this off-brand valentine where people grow a Daisy for a whole year and then in Daisies Day they give it to the person they love the most, you have to cultivate the love for a whole year, take care of the Daisies, water them, cut the ugly stuff and then give it to your "one and only". Of course, there are people that cultivate the love for a whole year but then have no one to give the daisy to, or couples who fight and cut the flowers, or people who just don't care enough and their whole pot dies. Some people receive more than one Daisy, a boy once got 4 Daisies, when that happens you either reject some people or you can be a jerk and keep all the flowers as some kind of trophy, you know, like playing with people, there are lots of jerks nowadays.

I collect that kind of Daisies, the ones that never got to be given, or the ones that got rejected. It's surprising how many Daisies you'll find on the streets, some are broken, some are petalless, some are trampled, but all of them carry a story. Today's morning I saw a man proposing to his girlfriend with a Daisy and she rejected him, they were pretty known, I thought they were perfect for each other, he was a teacher in a kindergarten and she was a, emm, I don't really know but it was related to economy, she worked in the city nearby. He tore the whole flower apart, she rejected him because she had already received a Daisy and kept it, meemaw said it was from a man of the city, a lover she hid. There's also this woman, Elina, who lost her husband three years ago, he was a fisherman, so she still grows the Daisies each year and then she pulls apart the petals and lets them fall into the river, meemaw says it's sad, but I think it's beautiful, there's a certain beauty to those petals falling into the water so gracefully, and there's a sad beauty to all those flowers that end in the trash. So each year I pick them up, all the reject Daisies, this year I got 27, 27 people that didn't find their happy ending, 27 people that probably will be chanting they'll never fall in love, and out of those 27 I know at least 5 that as soon as they get home will throw out the window the whole pot, and for one of them it will be three in a row, poor Sam, he tries but he's also a bit of a jerk.

I feel I've said Daisies a lot, probably gives you nausea, yeah? same. I used to love Daisies (oops, there it goes again) but then I understood the pressure they represent, and yes, I never got one, maybe I'm just jealous, I don't really need a Daisy in my life, or maybe I do and that's why I have to burn Daisies every Daisies Day.

Instead of cutting the Daisy I grew in my window, I cut my hair, I hate it long and it gives me something to do in the day, and instead of braiding the traditional flower crown I braid my short hair. But I don't like the idea of never being able to braid my flower crown, we are supposed to count every Daisy we ever got and then braid that exact number into a beautiful crown, of course, you get to do it when you have received enough, I haven't met a teenager with a crown yet, grandmas always braid them, or the most conservatives just put the Daisy they got that day in their dresses or those old-fashionated hats that you were supposed to use when married. I've always like those hats. But what if you've never received a single flower, yes, of course, meemaw grows a flower for me each year but it's not the same. It might be my fault though, maybe its because I also have not given away my flower, I always grow the Daisies but never found how to think about when watering them, til then I'll just keep burning Daisies.

And I felt in realization that maybe I don't hate Daisies, not a bit, not at all, perhaps I just don't fancy the idea of never getting to braid my own crown, or cutting my hair each Daisies Day, or the taste of Lavender bread. As much as I like burning Daisies, maybe I don't, maybe what I like are ashes and the smoke, maybe what I like is watching the Daisies disappear, or maybe I do like Daisies, I say as I burn another Daisy.