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Memento Mori (minus the mori)

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Remember you must die.

Chef Boy ‘R Mine sent me flowers for Mother’s Day.  I’m one of those women who like to receive cut flowers as a gift.  It’s especially nice when delivered by a florist.  And better yet because they were from my son.  The first I’ve received from him. 

The florist delivered them to the wrong house, but they got to me in short order.  And they were beautiful – roses, ferns, asters and lilies.  They were beautiful as was the vase provided.  It’s a square, heavy, clear glass vase that will get plenty of use in the years to come.

I was pleased with the vase, because once the flowers were spent I would have it to remember the first time my son sent me flowers.

The flowers and the vase have comingled on my kitchen table for the past few weeks, one dead petal after anothing dropping.  The ferns browning, the roses drooping.  The water clouding.  The vase gathering dust.  As I tried to restore order to the house, I would walk past the arrangement making (another) mental note to throw the flowers out, wash the vase and store it in a cupboard.

Eventually, I got around to it.  When I pulled the remains of the flowers, I discovered that a few of the blooms were still beautiful, still “lively” – I discarded the dead and brown, washed the vase and restored the survivors to clean water. 

It’s a beautiful ensemble.  With only a few blooms and a couple of ferns, this new arrangement is much simpler. 

Clean, fresh, nice lines.

Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that translates as Remember you must die.

Well, I suppose so. 

But not today. 

Sometimes when you get rid of that which is spent, you uncover something equally delightful.  And there’s no need for the cupboard – not yet.

Remember.

Amaryllis Vigil Day 25

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

The twins are getting big and the blooms should be spectacular this year.

I mentioned that you have to be tough to live in The Barn; and, it seems, amaryllis bulbs thrive on toughness.  For the past few years, one of the two amaryllis bulbs has produced blooms.  In fact, the second bulb was an off-shoot of the first and I didn’t expect it to ever do much of anything it was such a small and puny thing.  Indeed, both plants look awful most of the year and I only keep them around for the February/March spectacle of blooms.   

This past year, as part of Gardenpalooza, I put all the houseplants in the ground to fill an empty bed.  They were happy campers, all of them – including the amaryllis bulbs.  The two bulbs grew healthy leaves, for once, and simply thrived in the garden.  When it was a given that the first frost was imminent, I ran outside in the rain, ripped all the houseplants out of the dirt and, lacking potting soil, simply set them in the guest bathroom bathtub.    

I got busy.   

I don’t ever use that bathroom and forgot about the plants.  By the time I remember, all of them looked dead.  I left them.   

Last year - double buds.

With the news that Chef Boy ‘R Mine was bringing home a girlfriend, I figured it was time to get the dead plants out of the bathtub.    ‘Twas a miracle it was, but many of the plants survived – they’re on life support, but alive.  In inspecting the amaryllis bulbs I was astounded at how big they’d gotten.  It took some doing to find pots around the house to accommodate their size.  Since they had been brutally treated, I expected no bloom this year.  Hah!  I’ve got two stalks on each of them including the one that has never so much as thought about blooming.  The other major difference this year is that growth is much slower – in previous years, the stalks appear out of nowhere and are 2 feet tall within a week or so.    

One of last year's blooms.

This year’s are taking their time and I’m thinking the blooms are going to be spectacular.  Extrapolating from the past, I expect to get 8 large flowers rather than the 1 double-bloom of last year.  (And look how healthy those leaves are!) Hoo boy!   The camera is going to get a workout in a week or so – two of the bulbs have started bulging – a sure sign of impending bloom.   

I’ve mentioned a time or two (is than an understatement or what?) that 2009 was an awful year in many respects.  With a couple of remarkable exceptions, my well-being has been as brutally treated as the houseplants.  I think this means I should be double-blooming soon.  Stay tuned for updates.  🙂

The Doors to Nowhere Somewhere

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

Doors to Nowhere

I can’t, now, remember the logic behind it, but one of the very first things we did in The Barn was to put in a set of French doors on the second floor. The idea was to build a balcony. I was in my Shakespeare phase.

The balcony still hasn’t been built. I refer to the doors as the Abbot & Costello Doors, the Laurel & Hardy Doors, or The Three Stooges Door. Each of those comedic teams, at one time or another, used the gag of a door that opened to nowhere and involved a fall. When Chef Boy ‘R Mine was small, we nailed a piece of wood across the doors to prevent their opening. That piece of wood was still there when I re-did the room in 2006. (Re-did, hell, DID the room.)  Despite it being nailed shut, The Ex made a down and dirty screen for it which is still there and still ugly.  Screen doors for narrow French doors are hard to come by.

In keeping with the ridiculousness of doors  that go nowhere by way of an ugly screen, I bought the wrong kind of door handle in 2006 to replace the wash cloth stuffed into the door handle hole that had been there since 1990. HMOKeefe installed the door handle. He never questioned the selection; I am, afterall, the woman who installed her towel rods upside down because I like them better that way.  The handle was a mistake, but I’ve grown to love it.  It’s goofy and the master bedroom might be too pretentious without a touch of goofiness here and there.

Dawn

The doors lock from the inside. Makes sense, no?

I love those doors. Someday there will be a balcony.

[I can’t decide if I want French Quarter wrought iron or Deep South veranda with a pergola, or what, but I don’t have the money so the point is moot.]

The French doors are in the master bedroom which was the living room during Phase I, II, and III of The Barn’s transition to house. When we finally moved the living room, the French Door room was the dressing room and the exercise room. When I had the Happy Divorce To Me remodeling, Burl, the Handyman Extraordinaire, moved a doorway to accommodate the new bed and the dressing room became the bedroom.

I wanted to relocate because the room which used to house the bed (and is now the dressing room) has 5 windows and far too much sun in the morning. I was waking up just past o’dark thirty everyday. The sun was better utilized to illuminate the dressing table; and the French doors are friendlier to wake up to. On hot summer nights, I open the doors and listen to the peepers and enjoy the breeze wafting through the lace curtains – the ceiling fan lazily circling and going nowhere.

mmmm, nap

We had a snowstorm today with significant snowfall. I had no place I had to be and nothing I had to do.

[There’s always plenty to do, but today there was nothing pressing. As is customary for me on such days, I accomplished far more than if I had something that had to be done. I’m oppositional like that.]

Before bed last night, I draped the lace curtains up over the curtain rod so I could watch the anticipated snow fall when I woke up. It did and I did and it was a lovely morning. Eventually, I got up, drank a half-pot of coffee, and decided a nap was in order. I lazed away the morning, snoozing and watching the hush fall over my world through those doors.

I have the keys.

It’s not true that they go nowhere. They’re a portal leading to contentment and comfort. The longed-for balcony won’t change much. The doors, all by themselves, bring the outside in and the inside out. It is my place between the worlds – inside/outside, waking/sleeping, daydreams, sweet dreams, midsummer nights and midwinter naps.

The doors are no longer nailed shut. And when Juliet builds her balcony, the lock will still be on the wrong side of the doors leading to Nowhere and Somewhere and all the places in between. 

I have the keys.