For cut flowers bought in a shop, these carnations are very old. Survivors, you might say. I carried them home two weeks ago today, part of an ill-advised purchase of red wanna-be petunias that were really something else (what I still don’t know), plus these rimmed carnations, plus a large bunch of spiky greens, all of which I disliked intensely once I had managed to stuff every last stem into an oversized container fit for major floral condolence. I had wanted yellow flowers, or orange ones, and not too many. I had wanted to put them in my own much smaller rectangular glass vase, wanted them to look at home. Instead what I let myself be talked into was stiff, institutional, fancy. (See “Meditation on Flowers,” two posts back.).
But after ten days, the petunia wanna-be’s began to shed their red petals all over the glass table top. The spiky green things wilted and yellowed. The carnations hung on. Time isn’t always the enemy. Now that I have only the carnations, they seem more orange. And now they do look the way I wanted them to, a little sloppy, a little droopy, just right next to Bill’s orange bowl.
They’re not going to last, I know that. If you look closely, you can see one carnation has given up, its stem bent sharply towards the ground. Several of the others are beginning to wrinkle. But even if it’s just for now, that’s fine. Isn’t now all any of us have, even the young who feel they’ll live forever?
For now, there’s also a bonus. It’s on my other table, in a little vase I’ve had since I was twenty-seven. That’s fifty-nine years ago. Old can surprise you. Hang on.
Carnations were my mother’s favorite flowers… probably because of the smell. I don’t really remember. Somewhere along the line, though, I discovered that when my flowers began to droop, I could cut the stems close to the flower and put them in a shallow bowl and they looked quite good for a while. Nowadays, I think of myself as in a shallow bowl. My best wishes to you always.
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Thank you, as always, Shimon, for your warm words. However, I do wish you didn’t think of yourself as being cut so close to the stem. How long did the flowers in the shallow bowl manage to last?
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a few extra days… sometimes a week…
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I hope you’re not also speaking metaphorically.
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Oh dear.
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If you find it offensive, my dear Nina, please delete. It was the mention of metaphors that reminded me…
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Me? The dirtiest mouth on the Eastern Seaboard? Find it offensive? Not in the least, Shimon. I’m just sorry you feel you look like s**t. I’m sure that to the people who love you, you don’t.
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Nothing at all to worry about, about, Nina. I Have no such fears. Actually, I was given a fine body, and an adequate mind. It is just that I find this fellow (who’s younger than we are) quite amusing; especially the way he describes common conversation about aging. And I hoped to share a smile with you and your other devoted readers. Once I left my terrible childhood behind me, life has gotten better with the years. I accept the process of nature with grateful wonder. Thank you for your concern.
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Hang on you say….I am, I am . Thanks for the lovely insights. I hope we get to see each other in person some time again, soon!
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It’s so good to see you pop up on the blog again, Kathy. I’d love it if we could meet again, too. Where are you located these days? Do you ever get back to New York? Perhaps we should continue this colloquy by email?
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Obviously, I missed this. Am in California, these days and most. Yes, get back to NYC from time to time; I’ll let you know, but things are a bit hectic now. Do you have my email?
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No, I don’t have it and would like to. Would also love to reconnect. I think my email is somewhere on WordPress, but if you can’t find it, here’s another I set up only for particular purposes that can be closed down at once without loss if misused by someone prowling the internet (not you, of course): annajd1985@aol.com.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
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I think there’s a certain beauty to aging. A smile can remove decades. That’s what those carnations are doing – they are smiling.
Leslie
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That’s such a lovely thing to say, Leslie. I wholly agree: smiling does remove the years.
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Keep smiling Nina. Your beauty will shine through.
Leslie
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😇😇😇
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😉
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