You deserve flowers

If joy is too much today, consider softness

It is my firm belief that at this time, we must send each other flowers. Literally, if possible. Otherwise: texts, emails, passenger pigeon. Small nudges. Whatever we can muster.

When life seems this dark—and, it must be said, very male, to use that multifaceted word in the worst and most simplistic way, connoting crude authority, force, violence, and greed—there is something about flowers in particular that seems powerful.

I thought about this recently as I sat at a book fair booth, hawking my wares in a state of deep sadness. The place was bright with creativity and color and chatter, light glittering off shiny book covers and cellophane, but I felt submerged in darkness, especially anytime I considered the state of the world beyond this cheerful plaza.

Perhaps you have experienced this: the tasks at hand called up my energy from the depths of the well. Conversations loosened little sparks of life that glinted for awhile in the water. Then would come a moment of stillness, and any bright flecks that had floated at the surface dropped down violently, as if a magnetic field had been switched back on. They settled quickly at the bottom, forming a thick layer around and above me, dampening all sound, dimming all vibrance.

“Joy is an act of resistance,” they tell us, especially these days. But sometimes joy seems out of reach. In fact, deep sadness can turn small good things into additional heaviness. At my worst times, for example, my husband’s unflagging kindness might make me feel worse—because in the throes of depression, I feel that I don’t deserve him.

Perhaps you have experienced that part, too.

At the fair, it occurred to me that perhaps instead of joy we can aim for softness. Because when it’s this bad, we tend to get stiff. The world is all hard lines and harsh absolutes. We look at whatever is dragging us down—such as terrifying headlines—and think, “This is the end. Everything is ruined. Nothing will help. All is lost.”

I am not here to overturn any of those statements. Not today. That is too much. But I do know that to function, we might need a little softness.

At the end of the day, a teenager approached my booth. He paged through my book once, twice, three times as we conversed. He said he came to Costa Rica from Venezuela when he was just 13. “This is beautiful,” he said. “It seems like it was made with a lot of love.” He finally concluded that he didn’t think he could buy it but that he would love to read it someday to practice his English.

For so many reasons, I wanted to give him the book for free, but my sales that day had barely covered my parking. I thought: I am a terrible saleswoman. Everything is pointless. Nothing is worth doing. And then I remembered I can do anything I want with my own writing, and I yielded, and I inscribed it to him as he talked to the next author, and slipped it into his hand as he started to walk off. He looked very happy. It didn’t bring me joy, deep down at the bottom of my well, but it softened me. When he thanked me, I allowed myself to consider that perhaps I deserved it.

I made the long drive home. My puppy was chewing a toy. When he glanced at me out of one baleful eye and then scooted his puppy butt closer so that he could drape his legs into my lap as he chewed, it softened me. I allowed myself to consider that perhaps I had a puppy in my lap because I deserved it.

So. What is your favorite flower?

Mine is the cornflower. I found myself thinking about the last time I saw some, blooming near a stone wall, near the sea—how gently they nodded at me in the breeze as I ran past, how far away that sea is from me now. It made me sad. But then I allowed myself to consider that perhaps the cornflowers nodded at me because I deserved it.

Something fresh and bright, impractical, pretty.

You deserve them, too, just for being here, deciphering black and white marks on a screen. So do any of us who are still reading things. Reading is passive, but it can be brave, too. It means we are taking in information even though the information we take in keeps knocking us over. We keep getting up, continuing to seek, continuing to compost everything around us and figure out what might emerge from the smelly muck.

You deserve flowers. So does Bishop Budde; and every teacher and school official standing up for their students; and the sturdy lawyers who are doing grunt work amidst fear; and everyone writing and calling and marching despite an endless well of doubt; and everyone turning inwards and focusing on their own work, because they know it is important.

The list goes on.

Who is on yours? Who deserves flowers urgently? Can you send some today? Or you can say their name here.

If that is too much: may I lend you my cornflowers? They are nodding to you, on a summer’s day long past, in the breeze that I leave behind as I run by.

“Cornflowers,” original oil painting on canvas by Irina Redine. bluethumbart.com.au