A rose is not a rose

There are roses and then there are roses. Anyone with eyeballs knows what I'm talking about. These fall into the latter category and exist on an entirely different planet than anything wrapped in say it with flowers paper and a packet of food. Dripping with petals, full of beetles and picked a moment before from the garden- these are Gertrude Stein's roses and Shakespeare's too. Do I even need to talk about the smell? It's everything.

I scoured the bushes to find the slightly past prime ones, a little rusty around the edges, just to feel okay with clipping so many. Rose thorns often carry bacteria so most every prick will develop a small infection and throb for days, it's a joint sacrifice for the both of us. I shy away from decadence in most forms, but I am powerless in front of a rose bush. I clip and clip unabashedly. The next few days are spent bringing your little bouquet from room to room as you go about your business, periodically smelling them when the scent fades from memory. 

Post-script: I have written a small piece on my girlhood fascination with roses for the newly launched book Summer Goals. Please take a look.

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Orange you glad

I'm only saying this cause we're friends, but I've been avoiding you. Straight up seeing you coming and crossing the street. Truth is, two weeks ago my cat died and I didn't want to talk about it. Still don't. But it felt awful to talk about anything else, so I pulled out my proverbial cellphone to make a pretend phone call whenever I saw you coming round the corner.

Let's instead think back to July, back to when summer was never gonna end. I bought these two buckets of flowers at the flower market in New York and brought them up to New Hampshire, my one big birthday present to myself. I went flower crazy and as I made this bouquet, Frankie held the camera reins.

Orange doesn't come easily for me. It's work. I mean, I love a peach or an apricot, a rust or a pumpkin pie- but straight orange has always proven the red headed stepchild of the spectrum. Not until the New England daylilies bloomed this year did I even start to warm to it. But now we're making peace, one lily and rose and calla at a time.

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Thank you

Thank you all so much for your warm reception to my new website! I'm really deeply touched by your emails and comments, I wish I could launch a new site every week just to read them. It makes my heart swell thinking about it, I'm so beyond grateful to have found a circle of inspiration in all of you.

While I'm home in Brooklyn, I still have a whole summer's worth of New Hampshire photos for you. The little arrangement in the windowsill was made from mostly from flowers from the small town farmer's market. The grower was selling them in bunches for less then a latte and I dug deep in the bottom of my bag to make sure I spent every penny I could. The zinnas are beyond special, an old fashioned variety called Raggedy Anne with long fringey, folded petals. Let's all remember this variety when it comes time to plant next spring? Starting zinnias from seed is nearly 100% foolproof, the easiest of easy for beginners, and they last ages in a vase. They are summer wrapped up in a single stem, I think.

Do you remember my parent's kittens Ella and Calla? They are full grown ladies now, but it doesn't diminish their calico cuteness. My mom drove the kitties the 10 hour trip to Elmwood in a cat carrier and only a single mew was heard the whole time. The cats had as good a time on vacation as we all did. This little lady caught a bat and deposited him on the bedroom floor. I can only laugh over how excited she must have been- the great huntress thinking she caught the only mouse ever born with wings.

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Home for good

I'm very sorry to say that Elmwood season is over for the summer. Brooklyn is home again and I must admit I've shed a few tears over it. The upside is now I get to relive it all by going through my photos (in the comfort of my local coffee shop's air conditioning). This bouquet is from a project that's been in the works for almost 10 months, it's going to be done next week and I'm bursting with excitement to show you. Playing with flowers at the house, surrounded by my dearest friends and family, really overwhelms me with gratitude. My honest-to-god happy place.

Getting to live out a New Hampshire daydream for a month makes city streets a bitter pill to swallow, but for now I'm trying to look at New York with fresh eyes. Those streets- along with the sounds of ice cream trucks and honking horns, rainy mornings that make the pavement steam, my thirsty houseplants and timid kitties- those are all home to me and it's nice to see them again.

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The pink room

When I was a little girl, I would sleep in the pink room at Elmwood. It's not actually pink, but white with 1940s wallpaper that has trailing pink and white morning glories. There are two matching twin beds, a truly unfortunate pink carpet and some lace curtains that would melt into a pile of plastic if ignited. 

That's one of my favorite things about Elmwood. It's a beautiful place, so gorgeous you could and will weep when I finally invite you there in real life, but it isn't painfully art directed. There are some ugly curtains. Moldy wallpaper. The world's most miserable mattresses. A FUTON FROM THE 1990s. It's a real place, not perfect. And everyone who knows what's what knows that makes it all the more charming.

When I was up last weekend, the flowers in the garden made my knees buckle. There has been a lot of talk about lilac season being a letdown this year but our trees were basically rioting. Apple blossoms, too. Plus some bleeding heart from the front yard, the tiniest snipping I could take.

Going into the garden and making a little bouquet from what's fresh and free will lots of times beat overworked, over-thought, overly pricey flowers in my book. A humble bouquet, one that still has beetles and bees, cuts right to the heart of why people love flowers.

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mother's day

Last weekend I drove the station wagon down to visit my parents for mother's day weekend. I brought along a little jar of loose flowers and on Sunday, I sat my mom down on the patio for a mini flower arranging class. Coral charm peonies, amaranthus, viburnum clipped ever so illegally from the side of the highway and a few coral bell leaves from my window box in Brooklyn.

My mom is pretty much an untapped floral genius. She kept on doing this thing where she'd furrow her eyebrows and really consider where she'd place the next flower- her attention to detail and eye for composition was almost unnerving. I kept on saying things like beautiful flowers look beautiful wherever you put them while jamming flowers in the vase. She was graceful but purposeful.

Her love affair with the coral charm peonies lasted for days. I'd come into the kitchen and catch her openly staring at them from a distance of 6 inches. It was a simple thing, our little flower class, but overwhelmingly nice, too.

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It pours

There's a creeping, slow subtly to April that really compels me. The grey skies, the icy rain, the just out of reach glimmer of, oh wait no never mind, warm weather is ages away. Landlords turn down the heat in buildings so everything feels damp. Thunderstorms thrash and freeze you to the bone in a way that not even the most paralyzing January blizzard can understand. At least then you're wearing woolly socks. By the time April rolls around, I've sworn off tights and winter coats till next November.  I'm defenseless.

April is quite possibility the coldest month out of sheer spite. All the while, though, there are flowers sneaking up on you when you least expect them. Impossibly big, lush magnolias enough to make your eyes roll back in your head before the first tree has even peeped a leaf. Every spring I say this and every spring it's truer than the last- I can't believe such beautiful things happen every year for us to see.

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