Friday, February 3, 2012

I am helpless against roses.

My husband was the first man to ever bring me roses.  After our first date, I came home to my apartment one afternoon and found a dozen roses, left on my doorstep, with a note from “guess who.”  In the years since, he has often made similar gestures, usually not on Valentine’s Day, or my birthday.  Very rarely even on our anniversary.  Generally, it’s just some random evening that he decides to show up with a romantic gift.  Those moments are wonderful in their unexpectedness, remind me that he still considers me worth wooing, and humble me for being such a cold-hearted, “don’t waste your money on romantic gifts,” kind of girl.  Let’s face it, no matter how down to earth and practical I try to be, there’s still a little girl inside me, who loves playing dress up, things that sparkle, and, emphasis on occasional, romantic gestures from the man I love.

My daughters don’t have any of that practicality yet, but also don’t attach any romantic notions to flowers and jewelry.  Whether you are mother, father, aunt, sister, or random acquaintance, they will joyfully accept any flowers, trinkets, or jewelry you’d like to offer, without making any awkward relationship assumptions.  While, anymore, they seem to enjoy dance for its own merits, it rose to a place of prominence in their priorities when my oldest was showered with bouquets after her first recital.  I think my middle daughter danced her first year, purely in anticipation of cellophane wrapped roses and baby’s breath.

It was my oldest’s dance acquisitions, not my husband’s romantic overtures, that overwhelmed me this week.  After dancing her first principal role, she was blessed with an abundance of beautiful flowers from us, and from family and friends.  Then she got another big bouquet during curtain calls.  I filled a two gallon pitcher and dutifully arranged them all for her, placing them in the dining room for her to enjoy.  I immediately started a sneeze and runny-nose fest, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal to live with flowers for a week or so until they died.

After a day and a half of cohabitation with their loveliness and aroma, however, my husband came home from work and blurted, “Whoa!  What’s wrong with your eye!?”  I hadn’t looked in the mirror all day, so I was shocked to see that my eyes were severely blood shot and there was a yellow blister growing out of my eye ball.  I scoured the internet to find out that I had a cyst on my eye ball, and that allergies can cause it.  So much for any future romantic gestures; so much for enjoying the girls’ recital gifts; so much for that lovely Japanese orchid I’ve been hinting about for the last six months (I stuck my face in one yesterday to see if it would make me sneeze; no sneeze, but the reward for my stupidity was a thirteen hour sinus headache and a scratchy throat).
Recital flowers are now quarantined to an upstairs bedroom, and I guess my husband’s going to have to woo with diamonds from now on.
 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:12

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