A Life Full of Flowers
I have to admit...
...that I am often completely intimidated by beautiful flowers. I gasp when I see them on a stall, feel a slight quickening of my heart rate when I decide to buy some, get ridiculously excited and happy carrying them home, and then, and then... I gaze at them. How, oh how, oh how can I even begin to capture what I'm seeing? Their life, their intricate detail, exquisite variants of colour within one single petal. Instead of seeing a million photographs I could take dancing through my mind, I just see them sitting there, freshly wrapped in brown paper: a perfect, simple, natural gift to all humanity. And their silent, yet bombshell beauty just asking me to admire, nothing more, just admire and love. Wow. So I leave them for a while if I can, still wrapped, because the thought of plonking them, or even arranging them in some kind of vase leaves me slightly cold.
There is no doubt that Instagram has brought more flowers into my life. For some reason I used to wait to be given flowers, feeling a ridiculous and very unhealthy sense of guilt if I bought them for myself. I can hardly believe I'm the same person sometimes! It's something I don't mention often, but I suffered with depression for many years. Finally, at Easter last year I decided to try and do something about it. I have replaced unhealthy guilt, self-deprecation, anxiety, people-pleasing and living according to a set of rules I'm not sure I truly ever agreed to, with new habits such as different kinds of therapies, cutting right down on caffeine and alcohol, getting enough sleep, getting my hair cut by a top-notch hairdresser who understands curls, exercising regularly, allowing myself unlimited joy and expression of that joy, and basically reminding myself to treat myself with kindness. And in all that, I have found that I love more, judge less. I make those I live with a million times happier, and I'm giving permission to my children to love themselves, to be kind to themselves, and to watch out for the all-too-easy tendencies to speak badly of themselves...
And I buy myself flowers, regularly. I can't believe I lived for so many weeks and months and years without flowers, seeing them as an indulgent luxury rather than a cheap but necessary part of appreciating being alive in this extraordinary world. They lighten up our lives. And they beg to be photographed in all their states of dance and decay. They don't have to cost much. £3 for a bunch of supermarket roses which will last up to ten days is not a lot of money for the number of times your eyes are happy!
Photographing them is so much fun, and trying to capture them in all their stages feels as if I'm truly appreciating their life-span in my care. Their new, perfect buds, their unfurling, their withering... I love their petals, tiny like cake sprinkles, or huge and floppy as bunny ears, soft as double cream. I love their vibrant colours - living in a house where the canvas is purposefully very neutral and pared-down, means that flowers shine all the brighter, blasting a corner with red, pink, blue, whatever it might be. They take centre stage, and I applaud them every time. And I tell anyone I can who'll listen that it's time we all took centre stage in our own lives. No more self-deprecation, neglect and apology for who we were born to be: a fabulous, multi-coloured, vibrant, loud, singing, laughing, weeping, shouting, peaceful, loving meadow of every kind of flower you can imagine. It's time, and it's also never too late, to dance in the wind, soak up the sun and open our petals for all to see in all our glory.
