Flower Picking
I spent the majority of the first COVID lockdown alone with my daughter.
Schools, parks, libraries, museums, and cafes were all shut down. So in order to burn off some fraction of the limitless reserve from which 4-year-olds draw their energy, I was forced to get creative with activity planning. My daughter and I spent countless afternoons that spring scooting in graveyards or vacant lots, tossing stones into the polluted waters near the derelict steel mills, exploring the strange makeshift teepees in the woods near the golf course…
In time, it became a part of our routine to go flower picking in a high school football field near my home. The field had gone fallow and been reclaimed by weeds—the formerly sterile green expanse had given way to a rich tapestry of blue and purple and white and yellow. We collected flowers from creeping thistle and purple loosestrife and queen Anne’s lace. We picked dandelions and goldenrods and speedwells.
We carried these treasures home with us and set up miniature bouquets in mugs and shot glasses and measuring cups. Soon, there were clusters of weeds perched on every flat surface that was low enough to be accessible to a 4-year-old.
Although I can’t imagine what harm we were doing, it was clear that our intrusion into this football field was not welcomed. The large hole in the chainlink that was our main entry point was soon sealed up. So we resorted to a smaller opening in the narrow alleyway behind the grocery store. When this was also closed off I taught my daughter how to identify where the chainlink was loose at the bottom and showed her how to roll underneath safely. When those areas were also secured I started carrying a pair of pliers and a hacksaw on our outings.
These were dark days. My mental health during that period was as bad as it’s ever been. Nearly everything about the world and my life was hanging in some kind of precarious suspended animation. I was burned out and tired and my slightly nervous disposition had blossomed into a full-blown generalized anxiety disorder. But I loved the time we spent together, my daughter and I, picking flowers in that derelict field. I loved seeing the mess of weeds and invasive species through her eyes—through the eyes of a child who hasn’t yet succumbed to the idea that only certain flowers are worthy of admiration.
I remember strolling through the house, whiskey in hand, late in the evenings, long after the child had fallen asleep. I used to love looking at those strange little bouquets, each brandishing its own novel combination of maligned beauty.
This was the first time I realized that certain kinds of flowers open and close with the sun.
They go through the motions even as they are dying, it turns out.
Those little bouquets withered and faded and went brown. But, still, every morning the wildflowers bloomed anew, found the courage to lay themselves bare and face the day, only to collapse again, in a few hours’ time, under the weight of the encroaching darkness.
