Flowers and Me

When I was in middle school, I got into something of a flower phase. There were time in, I think seventh grade, where I made sure that I wore flower *something* to school. This was somewhat easy because I had a pair of shoes that were made out of a sort of carpet bag material with flowers on them. But I also had a casual dress with flowers on it, a vest, even shorts I think. I had a bedspread with flowers on them.

I haven't really thought about this before, but this weird mini-obsession might have been caused by the flowers that we had growing near our mailbox at the time. When my parents bought a house right before I entered sixth grade, the previous owners had not treated it well. There were doors missing, the house was a miserable tomato-puke color (my mom's interpretation) and there was no grass in the front or the back yards. Now, being an environmentalist, I am not a big proponent of lawns. In California, they use up too much water to keep them up. My previous house had juniper bushes in the front, and a lawn in the back, which is where I acquiesce - it was really nice having a lawn to run around, spin, fall down on as a little girl. So if I have a house someday, I would like it to have a lawn. But only in the backyard. The front doesn't need one - but it should have something. This was just a bunch of dirt. My mom's plan was to first plant a magnolia tree, which she did, but it certainly wasn't very big when we moved three years later. Her next plan was to plant chamomile plants in the front yard as ground cover. But this was a very time consuming thing, and she was also attending graduate school at the time. So she didn't quite get to half of it before we moved.

But! Our mailbox was one of those right next to the street kind, where the mail person can just drive up to it. And there was a square patch of land around it. I can't remember if we planted the flowers, or if they grew on their own for some reason, but grew they did. They were as tall as me, nearing five feet, at the time. There were sweet peas and sunflowers, and all manner of who knows what.

I appointed myself household flower person, and every Sunday would go outside with a actual flower basket (it's like a basket, but with a flat area instead of the 'bucket') and carefully snip a bunch of flowers. Then I would take them inside and snip them diagonally underwater, like you're supposed to do. Then I would distribute them into vases, and place them in every room of the house. And I mean every room. Three bedrooms, the living room, kitchen, dining room, front hall and both the bathrooms.

I can't remember how long I kept that up, but I was pretty good about it. What I do remember, is that one year, during El Nino, our street flooded (we were on a cul-de-sac and the gutters clogged) and so to cross the street to my friends house, I had to walk away from the end of the street, around the water, and then back to her house.

That spring, my friend across the street had all my flowers growing where her mail box was! And without even trying! I was super jealous, but that's how life goes.