Tell me how a city girl … with probably not much more than a window box…fell so in love with flowers?

It never occurred to me that my enchantment with flowers was any greater than the average hopeless romantic – city dwelling or otherwise.  And this lovely question has kept me recollecting my life in flowers all week long.  I certainly have needed flowers, more than ever – since the world ended this spring. 

I mean that earnestly.  Between March and May, the most hopeful days I can remember dissolved into more sadness than I ever imagined I could contain.  After a decade of pilgrimages to the groves of crabapples and magnolias and lilacs curated at the Arboretum, this spring the petals unexpectedly lost their sweetness.  Every unfurling blossom seemed to peel back another layer of my disappointment and heartbreak. The tender pink branches opened and opened without me.  I had to let my ritual go, like so many other little joys I’d never thought to question.  Especially on Sundays.  

(Spoiler alert, my dears, lest you worry yourself.  I’m really, truly fine.  In fact, I might even be a little better than before.  I’m actually that stubborn.)

What the flowers have made clear to me is simple. The things we are waiting for others to give us – we need to give ourselves.  This is not to say we don’t need others to warm us, nourish us, help our gardens grow.  I would not have hoped at all without another more loving voice, insisting I see myself through those other, loving eyes.

Still, it is up to us to un-break our own hearts.  There’s no one else to do it, darling.  And you can’t repair your heart with stinginess.  It takes flowers and lots of them.  Flowers every Sunday.