Roses In Winter

I've never been a big fan of roses... Perhaps just for the sake of being different? I tend to shy away from the overly prosaic as a rule, but like any rule, there is usually an exception.

And my exception is the glorious Bluebird. It's held me under it's enchanting spell since I was a teenager apprenticing in a family-run little flower shop. Building order after order of yellow, pink, white, and multi-hued florabundas without batting an envious eyelash... One too many young starry-eyed boyfriends ordering the overly-cliched red dozen perhaps, had skewed my appreciation for what many consider the mother of all flowers.

But then one day a new shipment appeared on our loading dock that would change the way I would look at roses forever. Out came the boxes full of heady blooms, and straight into the walk-ins they went for safe keeping. The afternoon carried on, and toward closing time one of our chief designers started working on a hand-tie for his wife whose birthday was close on the morrow. He disappeared into the fridge for some fresh materials, and emerged with the most magnificent rose blooms I had ever beheld. Enormous...soft...velvety...luxuriously abundant chalky blue-lavender petals with slightly deeper centers...equal parts vintage and modern. I think I audibly caught my breath.

Turns out they were his wife's very favorite, and it was easy for any casual observer to see why. Every rose ever after would pale in it's shadow. Those many years ago, it was one of the first true lavenders on the market. They were expensive and hard to come by. And I was head over heels.

Each time they would come in by special order, I couldn't get enough...hovering over the work table of whomever was filling the order, burying my nose in their soft fragrance... They quickly became my cultivated soul flower.

Months passed, and I came into work on the morning of my 16th birthday (a little gray-ish feeling to be working that day, truth-be-told) to find waiting on my work table

16 Bluebird Roses

displayed in an arrangement fit for royalty.

I cried.

I had never (and perhaps have never since) received a gift that made me feel so incredibly special. I did not deserve such a gift. From co-workers/a boss no less. I did nothing spectacular. We were not super close friends. Yet the time and thought that went into ordering them (a month or more in advance), the exorbitant cost, the artistic time and love that went into presenting them in such a grand fashion. All of these things that went over and above the usual status-quo effort expended on a gift...it was overwhelming. And for the week or two that they were alive, my heart nearly burst from the purest form of human kindness they exuded. This gift of all gifts.

So what is the purpose of this tome? To educate you on the virtues of the Bluebird? To cram as many superlatives into one blog post as is humanly possible? To simply pass the time on this snowy weekend?

No, dear ones. My purpose in writing is perhaps less obvious, it is to share with you the joy of being known. My co-workers saw the simple delight that these particular roses brought to my life. How they spoke to me, and made my heart sing. - Perhaps that seems strange to some of you - but us romantics often feel rich, deep connections with objects and creatures of the natural world.

And not only did they see it, they remembered, and they chose to go out of their way to make me feel like a million bucks. This insignificant 16 year old apprentice.

Since then, lavender roses have become a dime a dozen on the market...you can easily find them everywhere, and though only a dim whisper of the glory of their forerunners, every time my husband brings me home a dozen, my heart swells again. Because he knows me. And he knows this story. And I love how he reminds me of it each time they grace our home.

As they are this very moment.