Flower Power

On my way out to my truck the other rainy day, headed for the hospital, I noticed a single yellow and red tulip pushing out of the ground by the white picket fence in our front yard.  The tulip was stunted and its leaves were bug-eaten and abused by our gardener's weed-eater, but it was colorful and bright and it brightened my day and reminded me of a story told to a group of artists at Huntington Lake by local artist, Margaret Hudson.

Margaret told of how, following the suicide death of one of her sons, she had spent a good deal of time fighting depression.  She'd taken a long walk in the woods one late-winter day, and the woods had been damp and the trees had not yet emerged out of winter hybernation, and as she was coming out of the woods she encountered a single flower pushing up out of the humus of a dead and decaying tree.  That single flower, she said, was a revelation. Margaret paints a lot of flowers.

Our across the street neighbors (we live in a cul-de-sac) Linda and Terry, came over this afternoon and weeded Sue's flower beds out front.  Linda is a flower person, too, and she and Sue both have an affinity for sweet peas.  Linda has been surreptitiously leaving flowers near our front door in singles and bunches and pots for Sue's and our enjoyment.  Here is a picture of a single camelia Linda left by our clay statue of Saint Francis of Asisi.  The Saint Francis sculture was made by Margaret Hudson's Earth Arts Studio.

Yesterday colleagues of mine from Kings View Corporation sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers to Sue.  We have both been getting a tremendous amount of enjoyment from them. 

Flower power has a nice alliteration.  But there really is a certain power in a flower.  Flowers are like a song you can't resist singing.  A flower, or a bouquet of flowers, is like a beautiful, smiling face you can't resist smiling back at.