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Send Me No Roses
Feb. 27th, 2011 06:20 pmI like the title of this article more than the content --"Send me no roses". It's defiant, stubborn, strong-willed. Send me no roses, and I will not lie when I say thank you.
I grew up with roses though. Dad would send them to mum sometimes, for her birthday or valentines or anniversaries. Because he'd been gone. Because he'd been there. Because he loved her, and was thinking about her, and sometimes just a bouquet of roses is the fastest way to mark that moment.
And I grew up with yellow roses. I find it odd, even now, that colours of flowers have a complex hidden meaning. Seriously, google "rose colour meanings". Hundreds if not thousands of results, explaining how white means purity and yellow friendship and red -only red- is the colour of True Love. Red roses are love, and anything else is cause for concern.
I grew up with yellow roses because my mom likes them best. She had a previous boyfriend, who would send her only red roses, despite her vocal preference. Yellow is for friendship, and he did not want her to think he thought her just a friend. I doubt that the colour of flowers sent played much a part in the courtship of my parents. But when my dad sends roses, they are yellow. Sometimes several colours together, but usually predominantly yellow. Because my mother likes yellow roses, and my father likes my mother.
My sister, always more typical teenager than I was, gets roses now. Bouquets of red ones, vibrant and sweet, from her boyfriend. I smile when I see them -a flash of colour making it obvious he adores her. She's dried some of them, with the help of her adoptive older sister, my best friend. Should it have been me? Perhaps, but I don't know how to save flowers so much as let them become fragile and crumble.
I keep flowers when I can though. Bright cloth happy flowers (never enough!) from Looney Labs. Roses of brass and leather and sugar and duct tape. Origami lilies that I constantly forget how to fold, and give to friends (should give to strangers). And real ones, when I come across them. Flowers I find on the street, and share with strangers who respond with songs, or classmates reminded of home. Flowers handed to me by damsels I rescued from distress. A beautiful bright orange lily shared from a bouquet after a show. More recently, a plum-coloured tulip stolen from the school cafeteria, that's dropped its petals all over my windowsill.
I used to make wildflower bouquets, back in elementary school, roaming the paths all by myself, and carefully clutching my bounties, hurrying back home. These days I try not to pick flowers --take nothing but photographs-- but I've no qualms when they've been picked for me, of scooping them up and behind my ear.
Send me no roses, I wouldn't know what to do with them. The meaning, the subterfuge, codes of colour and number and delivery option is too complex for me to figure out. But I grew up with flowers on the table. Not always, but sometimes.
I recommend it. Not everything in life needs to be strictly a matter of practicality.
~Sor
MOOP!
I grew up with roses though. Dad would send them to mum sometimes, for her birthday or valentines or anniversaries. Because he'd been gone. Because he'd been there. Because he loved her, and was thinking about her, and sometimes just a bouquet of roses is the fastest way to mark that moment.
And I grew up with yellow roses. I find it odd, even now, that colours of flowers have a complex hidden meaning. Seriously, google "rose colour meanings". Hundreds if not thousands of results, explaining how white means purity and yellow friendship and red -only red- is the colour of True Love. Red roses are love, and anything else is cause for concern.
I grew up with yellow roses because my mom likes them best. She had a previous boyfriend, who would send her only red roses, despite her vocal preference. Yellow is for friendship, and he did not want her to think he thought her just a friend. I doubt that the colour of flowers sent played much a part in the courtship of my parents. But when my dad sends roses, they are yellow. Sometimes several colours together, but usually predominantly yellow. Because my mother likes yellow roses, and my father likes my mother.
My sister, always more typical teenager than I was, gets roses now. Bouquets of red ones, vibrant and sweet, from her boyfriend. I smile when I see them -a flash of colour making it obvious he adores her. She's dried some of them, with the help of her adoptive older sister, my best friend. Should it have been me? Perhaps, but I don't know how to save flowers so much as let them become fragile and crumble.
I keep flowers when I can though. Bright cloth happy flowers (never enough!) from Looney Labs. Roses of brass and leather and sugar and duct tape. Origami lilies that I constantly forget how to fold, and give to friends (should give to strangers). And real ones, when I come across them. Flowers I find on the street, and share with strangers who respond with songs, or classmates reminded of home. Flowers handed to me by damsels I rescued from distress. A beautiful bright orange lily shared from a bouquet after a show. More recently, a plum-coloured tulip stolen from the school cafeteria, that's dropped its petals all over my windowsill.
I used to make wildflower bouquets, back in elementary school, roaming the paths all by myself, and carefully clutching my bounties, hurrying back home. These days I try not to pick flowers --take nothing but photographs-- but I've no qualms when they've been picked for me, of scooping them up and behind my ear.
Send me no roses, I wouldn't know what to do with them. The meaning, the subterfuge, codes of colour and number and delivery option is too complex for me to figure out. But I grew up with flowers on the table. Not always, but sometimes.
I recommend it. Not everything in life needs to be strictly a matter of practicality.
~Sor
MOOP!
