Did you know I used to work at a flower shop?

I started about a year after D Day (how I am now referring to May 11, 2011, the day I hanged myself, my Death Day) and for the summer, and every summer I was home from college, I worked at a flower shop. Second to my current gig, it remains the best place I ever worked.

It was the result of total intuition, that something about it would be really right for me. The night before my first shift I was so anxious that in my sleep, I scratched my arms until they were raw. But that night I also had one of the most immersive, mystical, ephemeral dreams of my life. I was easefully, blissfully frolicking through a glowing field of the most beautiful trees full of flowers in every color. It felt like pure love.

The juxtaposition of my body's reaction and the feelings and imagery of my dream is not lost on me. Reflecting on it now, it’s clear that my body, wearing 19 years of struggle and unworthiness, felt fear about a subconscious knowing of a bigger truth, and that it was pulling me towards what could be for my life.

The environment was human. The shop employed a cast of kooky characters young and old that could easily be the basis of some whimsical novel, but something about the unifying element, flowers, made the curmudgeons and the gossip and deadlines run off my back. Surrounded in such large quantity by their innocent, inherent beauty felt so…gracious.  And being able to take home leftovers from the week's work brought me such joy. Since that summer job, I’ve made a point to have them in my home whenever possible. Even when I was a broke grad student I’d sneak a few blooms from my neighbors gardens. Since then, I have what feels like an intimate, quiet, loving relationship with them. It feels like we get each other in a deep, unspoken way.

 I haven’t fully understood why until yesterday when I was reflecting on this more intentionally. 

Just like art, like music, like poetry, there are plenty of people that would argue they are extra, inessential, and I could not disagree more.

To me, they are a reminder that life is not merely meant to be survived, to be endured, it is meant to be made beautiful. And, implicitly they remind us that it doesn’t last forever.

To me they aren’t just a nice thing to have, they serve an essential function; they are an act of continued devotion to a life more beautiful.