Marjorie Hillis said that, an editor of Vanity Fair in the nineteen thirties. It's wisdom to live by, because it's not just on flowers, but what flowers symbolize...the beauty of impermanence, the passing of time, the experience of opening buds and falling petals.
These are things not to be cheap with, not to skimp on because it's noticing that moment of beauty when the tulips are bursting with vitality the second day in the vase and the graceful slump of the stems as the days wear on.
I love the solid soft color of tulips. Ever since I was younger and saw a bouquet of red ones in a clear glass bowl on my great aunt's dining room table. How splendid they were, crossing stems grass green and petals the red of a mother's lips. It struck me as a noble and steadfastly romantic flower. Not the romance of lovers, but the romance of Life.
Tulips are like an old friend, comfortable to have around and sad to see them gone. Here in the earliest reaches towards the first hint of Spring, I'll keep a vase on my dresser reserved.
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