“I’ll light the fire, you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today.”– Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
In the spring after my mother died, a slew of poppy anemones grew in my garden. It took some investigation to find out what they were. My haphazard approach to gardening, despite my efforts to write things down, involved scattering seeds and seeing what came up. First, I thought the poppies were ranunculus, which I’d made an effort to plant in cooler times after some lessons learned the previous spring. I was happy something new was growing but couldn’t yet identify what it was. I heard the stern voice of Gertrude Jekyll (a 19th century British horticulturalist) in my ear, admonishing me. What I did even in the best of times, was more of a random collection than a cultivated garden—I admit that—but to me it was highly intuitive and beautiful, much as I had to learn.
As it turns out, they’re not even poppies, but poppy anemone, windflower. in Greek mythology, Aphrodite was said to have wept at the death of her love, Adonis, and from those tears, poppy anemone grew. Meanwhile, Demeter wept over the loss of her daughter, Persephone, to the underworld. From her tears, opium poppy grew (yes, like the ones from The Wizard of Oz). The opium seeds from the poppy numbed her pain for days. Why quibble over the specific plant classifications, which story or what kind of love? Poppies came from the loss of a loved one, which always hurts.
As it happens, I had started taking California poppy essence shortly before an unexpected trip to Nashville; my aunt wasn’t well. (Some people feel that flower essences do nothing, they’re too subtle, they’re like charlatan water. For me, they make sense for what I need in certain moments and help focus my mind and energy.) For the record, opium poppy is completely unsafe for internal use whereas California poppy is her safe cousin–some say it allows us to navigate profound moments and spiritual transitions in life, even fast ones that contain many unusual experiences. I noticed it in my bag on the way to the hospital—it was almost empty.
During those days, I had the chance to spend quite few hours with my aunt at the hospital and other family members and friends as we all took in difficult news as well as signs of hope in our own ways. Sometimes I would go out for fresh air, walking in circles around Centennial Park, which offered some shade in the heat. (The tears mostly came when I was by myself at the airport, crying over a glass of Tennessee wine—though I almost never drank—and nearly missed my flight home because I was on the other side of the airport getting a bottle of hot sauce for my husband. “What are we supposed to do with all this loss?” was the question in my head. But also from the poet Philip Larkin “what will survive of us is love.”
Grief is haphazard in my experience. It has made me appreciate my crazy little garden even more. (No offense to Miss Gertrude Jekyll.) The poppies had brought me joy. In the spring, I would sit and watch how beautifully they swayed in the wind. The blooms lasted about a month. It is easy to notice all the flowers not coming up and the failures. Then there was the heat spell when so much dried up, including an azalea my in-laws had given me on Mother’s Day. Well, but what did grow? The snowdrops, the random Persian fritillary, brilliant purple skullcap, orange daylilies, ranunculus (yes, actual ones), tulips, daffodils, maybe some zinnia (still hoping). I was starting to think of care for my plants as care for myself—basic things, like was I really remembering to drink water and get sunshine every day. (Sometimes, it is harder than it sounds.) Who knows what will grow next.
In the room with my aunt, the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song “Our House” kept running through my mind, the flowers in the room and the sun: “Come to me now and rest your head for just five minutes, everything is done. Such a cozy room, the windows are illuminated by the evening sunshine through them. Fiery gems, all for you…”