Small small bouquetSAY IT WITH FLOWERS

Some small bouquets- SAY IT WITH FLOWERS

Some years that dracaena margenata or dragon tree in my livingroom in the Bronx, New York, has stalks of flowers that come out at night to attract moths, and by morning, smell so heady and sweet, we need to open the windows.  They are also very sticky. I’ve never seen the moths and that’s ok. What does that say? This plant is the descendent of the very first plant my now ex and I bought in the plant area in downtown New York in 1965 for $2.00 and carried on the subway all the way home. It was the year we got married and began to set up house. We also got a dog but the plant lasted longer than that.  I remember the time well. We said we’d live and love on as this tree grew tall and strong with many leaves. It lasted through many generations but not through us. 

My ex often said a lot with flowers. He’d put them, like the maids did in hotels with chocolate and mints and kisses, under my pillow. Love notes were there too in the prettiest stationary, sealed with a kiss. I’d giggle and revel in this love. I was so young. I was so naïve.

When we’d go upstate some years later to a cabin we had purchased, we’d drive by a favorite anemone grower we discovered around Kingston, New York. Always there were gorgeous pink and purple flower bunches. I remember one of our last weekends upstate when I think we both knew the marriage was over. We stopped on the way home and bought a bunch or two  of anemones with lots of red ones which meant…forsaken love. They looked great on the table in the Bronx. And then they didn’t. I never wanted to hear what anemones said or stood for after that.

One year we moved the baby of the dracaena tree to my parent’s house. They had lots of plants. It was cared for by my mother who swore when she died, it, and my father would perish without her. But they didn’t. And it even flowered. We took it back when my father died. 

My father never bought my mother flowers. He did ask me and my sister to buy them for him on her birthday, or Valentine’s Day or on their anniversary which she always had to remind him of, days before and sometimes, days after. One year, having forgotten to send us out to get some flowers in the local market, my father actually came home with daffodils which symbolize rebirth and new meaning.  Doesn’t that say something? They weren’t wrapped in any paper, just held in his hand, about a dozen. “Wow, dad, where did you get those? So yellow. So beautiful. ” “I picked them from the mall on Park Avenue on my way home from work; there were thousands of them. No one would miss my few.” “Oi vey,” I thought, thousands minus the ones dad stole, and those that someone else might steal and more that many dogs and cats peed on.

My mother’s favorites though that said it al,l were gardenias- purity and gentleness. My father could never find those. I think he really didn’t try hard. My mother loved the smell, very vegetable like. My sisters and I now love it too.  My family and I buy gardenia candles for her Yahrzeit. My mother’s name was Florence. She wasn’t given a middle name when she was born. Hardly anyone was she told us. So she decided she honor herself with one, Rose. And so we always thought of her as a flower, Florence Rose.

My now husband takes care of the plants in our Bronx apartment, takes care of all the wildlife as a matter of fact, the tropical fish and even the food. He is a foodie, too.  He objects when I pull dead leaves from his plants or comment on the few leaves with dark edges. He would not tolerate picking a flower from any of them.  He is defensive about it. He says they aren’t mine. We are both defensive about what is ours. When we have an argument, oh, yes we do, he often flies out the apartment door and heads downstairs to the street to cool off. I hum my way around the apartment then, glad for the break and revel in the knowledge that I was right in doing whatever I did. I do a little this and that in the room, and in a while reach up to the tall shelf in the kitchen above the sink and take down a vase. Or maybe two. I know this man. He will say it with flowers when he returns. That expression came in 1917 when two editors were looking for a slogan for the Society of American Florists. And in 1918 was used for Mothers’ Day giving. Flower language is complex; sometimes it is said, coded.  And I think I get it.

It used to be my now husband returned from the cool off period with carnations but I made it clear I do not like them. In Victorian times a red one meant I love you and if that love was not reciprocated, then a striped carnation would come in return. I never got red ones or striped ones. Just the usual pinks and sometimes a white. I don’t even like to see carnations on lapels at weddings. I do like their fresh smells though. But I think I am a wildflower person. Those are hard to find in flower shops. My husband usually returns sooner than I thought and all is well, and the flowers whatever they are, lovingly placed in the vases. Sometimes, some weeks, this place is like a greenhouse, so many vases filled with so many flowers.  

Saul, my husband, and I plant flowers on the terrace from seeds packets in the early spring. We love pansies and their cute little faces, pansies for thoughts, after the French penses. We love poppies which too soon lose their heads in a wind. Petunias often have little mites on them.  We take out the National Park packets of seeds, souvenirs from when we could travel to those parks, and plant them. Sometimes they surprise us and last a season even though we live in the east with its seasonal variation and the seeds come from the west with their own climates.  

We smile at the golds and yellows and orange in the marigolds we plant. They are hardy, last long and keep away mosquitos. We hope they will also keep away the virus. It’s certainly worth a try.