Chamomile Memories

My hands brushed the tall wild grass as I passed through the quiet woods, accompanied only by twittering birds. The clouds above me burned golden in the fading light, creating a glittering corona above the treetops. I closed my eyes and deeply breathed in the warm, damp air. The warmth around me only made me more aware of the hollowness within me. Crickets began to chirp as I found a dry patch of dirt to sit in.

“It’s getting dark,” I thought, realizing suddenly that I was the only one around. “I guess the good thing about being the last person on Earth is you won’t ever be bothered,” I said softly.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” a gentle voice spoke up from behind. I whirled around to face an old woman. She smiled sweetly at me and adjusted her straw gardening hat. “You know, I used to think the same thing. May I sit with you?” I nodded, unsure of what to say. The woman sat down stiffly and pulled her silver braid over her shoulder. She said nothing for a moment, instead looking up at the pink and gold sky. “I came to wander these woods years ago, believing that I was the last person around, much like how you are now.” She nodded at me. “I’m not used to getting visitors, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” I began, but she waved a hand at me. I crumpled a dry leaf in my hand, feeling emptier than before. “I didn’t think anyone was out here.”

“So why are you out here?”

I took a deep breath and wrung my hands in my lap. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to escape everything.”

The woman nodded and gave me a knowing glance. “Well, you picked the right place to come then. Nothing out here but nature and me.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the caretaker of these woods, a bit like a queen of my domain out here,” she chuckled, “but you can just call me Daisy. So, you feel like you’re the last person on Earth, huh?” I shrugged. “Why don’t you come on back with me, last person? I’ll give you a cup of tea and a couch to sleep on.” With this, she lifted herself from the ground, beckoning to me. Having nowhere else to go, I followed.

               We walked in silence through the darkening woods, following a foot path worn down by years of wandering. Fireflies lit our way as we approached a small cottage nestled in the trees. Ivy and morning glories grew up trellises perched on the white shiplap walls and poked into the open windows.

               “Home sweet home,” Daisy gestured. “Come on in! I’ll grab you a chair.”

               I took my shoes off inside the door and looked across the little house. Hundreds of picture frames covered the walls, filled with black and white photos and Polaroids, leaves and pressed flowers. Daisy drug a wooden chair up to her dining table in the corner of the main room and plunked a steaming mug down between stacks of books. I glanced at my place to crash for the night, a doily-littered couch that was once nicely stuffed, but now sagged a little in the middle. I swatted a moth away from my face as I sat at the table and looked across the mountain of books. Daisy smiled at me from her side of the table and raised her mug. I raised mine as well and sipped the sweet floral tea.

               “Like it? I make it myself. Even grow the chamomile flowers in that window box right over there!” I nodded and turned to see the flowers poking over the edge of the windowsill. “So, last person, you have a name?”

               “Aria,” I murmured between sips. I let my chest and shoulders untense, not realizing how stiff I had been. The tea warmed me softly as I sipped the last of it out of the small mug.

               “Well, Miss Aria, do you still think you’re the last person on Earth?” Daisy eyed me coyly over the stack of books.

               I gazed down into my lap, feeling as empty as my mug on the table and just as cold. My shoulders began to curl inward again. “Yes,” I breathed, “most of the time.” My eyes met Daisy’s as she nodded sympathetically. “I’ve felt like this for years and I don’t know why. I’ve just curled in on myself like a dying leaf until it feels like no one else is…is…” I scrambled for words, looking to the book spines for help.

               “Just is,” Daisy murmured. “Things just are, and you feel like people aren’t.” I nodded. It somehow made sense.

               “Everything feels like a dream and like I’m the only person awake to see it.” The words tumbled from my mouth like an undammed river, spilling down my neck and arms and pooling on Daisy’s dining table. I let my emptiness fill up the old woman’s house and pour out the open windows. I couldn’t stop myself as all the hurt rumbled up from the depths until the chair creaked beneath me and I shook. Daisy shifted the pile of books to the side and reached for my trembling hands. My breath rattled in my throat as I spoke, “I don’t really want to sound cliché, but I guess I came out here to find myself. I’ve been so lost for so long without any reason. I figured if I went into the woods, then I’d have a real reason to feel lost. Then, it would maybe make sense.” I wiped my tear-streaked face as another shudder ran through me.  “I’ve got this rock in the pit of my stomach I’ve been carrying around. I thought I could leave it out here and then I wouldn’t be the only person anymore. No one else seems to carry a rock,” I mumbled, voice barely audible.

               “Aria, everyone has rocks they carry around,” Daisy whispered. She pulled a wisp of stray hair away from my eyes. “Everyone just pretends on the outside that they don’t have them on the inside. Let me show you something.” I sank further down into the chair as Daisy stepped away from the table. She returned a moment later with a tattered, hardbound sketchbook. I leaned over to look at the pages she opened, revealing pencil sketches of fallen trees and deer skulls. I looked up at the old woman, furrowing my brows. “This is the sketchbook I used when I first came out here. I spent so much time feeling alone in my regular life that I decided to come feel alone out here instead. I used to sit in crowded rooms and feel as though I was the only person in there. Everywhere I was: when I was a little girl in school, when I was older at gatherings, when I was at work, everywhere I was so surrounded and so alone.  So, I found this little patch of woods to wander in and I brought a little sketchbook with me,” she said, tapping the yellowed pages lightly. “And I started drawing everything I saw around me that I also saw inside myself.” She scooted the book toward me and I flipped through the pages, scanning through images of logs and bones, mushrooms and piles of leaves, until the pages began to fill up with birds and wildflowers.

               “So, you’ve been out here ever since?” I asked quietly. I looked up at the old woman, studying the smile lines around her warm eyes.

               “Oh, no dear,” Daisy laughed. She pulled out a second, similar sketchbook and handed it to me. It was filled with more sketches of birds, flowers, and winding creeks, until the pages turned into houses and window boxes. Young faces and sketches of hands sprawled across the last few leaves of the book. “I left my rocks out here in the woods eventually and went back home bit by bit. It took awhile to realize it, but I discovered that I wasn’t the only person in the world. Everything felt real again. And I fell in love. We used to live in town, but when we both retired, we moved out here and built this house.” Daisy passed her fingers over the faces penciled into the old pages. “And now it’s just me.”

               “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t see how it could be any less lonely out here, now.

               “Oh, dearie, don’t be. I’m at peace and I’m not lonely. I’ve got Charlie over here to keep me company.” She waved a hand at a chubby tabby cat napping on the kitchen floor. I cracked a smile and Daisy laughed. “See? Everything’s good now. I used to be so lonely when I was surrounded by people, and now that I’m alone I’m no longer lonely. The world works in weird ways. You just have to spend some time with your thoughts, take a few deep breaths, and allow yourself time to heal.” We sat in silence for a moment as I nodded and mulled over her words. My muscles relaxed and I took a deep breath or two. Daisy took my mug and refilled it. I watched the steam dance over the rim, inhaling the sweet aroma. As I sipped the fresh tea, I looked around at the photos that covered nearly every inch of wall space. Daisy followed my gaze and began pointing out photographs, “See, that’s the two of us building this house, and that’s us at the fair, and that was our anniversary, oh that’s a shot of my old cat before Charlie…” The hours swiftly passed, tracked by the migration of sparkling stars outside the windows of the cozy little cottage. “I probably have you bored by now,” Daisy said after a while, despite my protests that I wasn’t bored at all. “So, what about you, kiddo?”

               I pulled out my phone and opened my photos. “Well, this is my dog, Shadow, and these are my plants, and that’s my bookshelf…” I told her about my hobbies and my school and my favorite music. When I said that I liked old jazz music, Daisy pulled out her record player. A river of brass and light vinyl scratches poured throughout the house and soaked into my skin. The rock in my stomach chipped away as I swayed in my chair. Daisy grabbed my hand and danced me around the living room, placing a dried flower crown atop my hair. We laughed and danced until the record scratched to a stop, finally sitting down on the aging couch. “That was fun! Thank you,” I said, failing to stifle a yawn.

               “Would you look at the time! We both need to get to bed. You can’t stay up this late all the time when you get to be my age,” Daisy chuckled. “I’ll grab you a blanket.”

               “Thank you,” I said again as I tucked myself into the couch. The quilt she handed me smelled of cedarwood and chamomile tea, and the calming combination quickly lulled me to sleep.

               Sunlight filtered through lace curtains the next morning, dappled by tree leaves and swooping birds. I pulled myself off the couch and stretched in the warm light. As I looked around for the old woman who let me stay, a piece of paper on the coffee table caught my eye.

               “Hey, Aria, I’m in the garden this morning. There’s muffins on the stovetop if you’re hungry and milk in the fridge. Don’t leave without saying goodbye! I’ve got something for you,” read the note in swooping cursive scrawl.

               I grabbed a blueberry muffin from the kitchen and tiptoed out into the sprawling garden. Daisy’s garden was as peaceful and rustic as her house. Trees swayed their branches in the light morning breeze and flowers danced their fragrant petals, inviting honeybees to land and drink; meanwhile, a cardinal chirped overhead and hummingbirds flitted around a feeder.

               “Mornin’!” Daisy called from behind a patch of purple alliums. “I see you found the muffins.” I nodded and hummed around of mouthful of blueberries. “Well, when you’re done with that, I have something for you.” She pulled her gardening gloves off and set a watering can on a nearby patio table, beckoning for me to take a seat. I plopped sleepily down in the sun-warmed chair and glanced at the basket Daisy pulled up from behind her chair. The morning light glinted off a something glass in the basket. I shielded my eyes from its glare as Daisy unpacked the contents. My eyes fell across an old jam jar filled with dried white flowers, a leather notebook, and a pencil case. The leather of the book was tough with age but smooth to the touch, cracking just a little around the edges of the spine. A thin black ribbon hung out from between the pages and draped across the metal pencil set.

               “What’s this?” I asked quietly, running my fingers along the edges of the book. After everything Daisy had already done for me, I hadn’t expected her to send me off with anything, and I told her that. She simply waved a hand at me.

               “Please, you’re my first visitor in ages. Let me do something nice for you! Here, you’ve got a jar full of my chamomile tea and a tea ball. Just put a couple scoops in and add some honey once it’s done steeping. And this is an old art pencil set I’ve never used and a sketchbook for you.” Daisy smiled up at me, but her image began to blur as tears welled up in my eyes. “Now, I want you to do me a favor, okay? Anytime you feel lost or alone, just make yourself a cup of tea, take this journal and those pencils, and go find someplace to walk. Sketch everything you see that appeals to you. Draw what’s inside you. The less empty you make those pages, the less empty you make yourself. Go make some new happy memories. Go fill all those hollow spots inside you with tea and nature and people.”

               My bottom lip quavered, and my voice caught in my throat. “Thank you. I don’t know how to thank you enough for everything,” I finally managed to say. I reached across the table and squeezed Daisy’s frail hands with my own unsure ones. The rock in my stomach lifted a little more as I stared across at the sweet old woman. Unlike most days of my life, the haze was gone. Everything around me was clear, vibrant, and alive: the garden and the bees that buzzed in it, the wild woods surrounding the little house, the cat purring under the table, and the woman who sat across from me. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel alone. “Could I come back and visit you sometime? Maybe we could be pen pals,” I suggested, fearing that the feeling would fade after I left.

               Daisy’s laugh rang throughout the garden, startling the cat at her feet. “Of course, Aria. You can visit my woods anytime. Come back and join me for tea when you fill up that sketchbook, yah?” A grin stretched across my face and I nodded. “Does that sound like a pretty good plan, last person on Earth?” She chuckled at the last part. I laughed along with her.

               “I’m not the last person on Earth,” I said, voice strong. “Not today.”