THE CUTTING

There are twenty seven steps from bed to french doors, across the pavement to the garden and her flowers.

Nature doesn’t have to try very hard to do its convincing that store-bought is overrated. 

In renovation, the overarching mandate is to breathe new life into neglected spaces.

Through every project, even when the walls were peeled down to the studs, I always had a vase filled with what could be foraged from fields nearby. If you told me that my life depended on it, I wouldn’t be able to choose my favorite between the smell of freshly-hung dry wall or fresh-picked flowers. 

Real beauty is never complicated. 

Today, it’s about the tulips. I stare at the color and insist on naming them something more exotic than pedestrian “orange.” I consider “pumpkin,” “apricot,” “carrot,” and “marmalade,” but land on “tiger” because that’s a little bit of the rebel I am. 

Tulips are the survivalists of the flower world, their delicate appearance sorely misunderstood. In the morning light, they open to absorb the sun and close up tightly to preserve the warmth at night. What are you doing to preserve your joy and peace in those wee hours when worry has its way?

Like all of us, tulips struggle with the idea of being contained; they are one of the only flowers that keep growing after they’ve been cut. Instead of wilting and fading away they never cease from reaching for the sun, twisting and bending in what has been fondly called, “the elegant dance.” 

My passion and my job is to infiltrate the physical world with something that comes close to grace.  Grace. A simple word with complex meaning, the embodiment of every nuance so needed now:

01. Simple Elegance.

02. Courteous goodwill.

03. An attractively polite manner of behaving.

04. The unmerited favor of God.

05. A short prayer of thanks.

Tulips from the garden. Flowers in a vase. 

Twisting. Bending. Reaching. 

How many steps from all the angst to what brings beauty to your sanctuary now?

I awaken and open my eyes and even though the heaviness of the world invades my sleep, 

in the morning I see the flowers. And no matter how twisted and gnarled, the root still raises itself from something buried to something born.  

Answers may be tangled and complex, out there to be discovered. 

But hope is in the simple things, most likely right in view.

Sunlight. Dancing. Gardens.  

If I am wise I will remember that after they’re cut, the tulips continue to grow.