My Forty Daughters
I was reading a wonderful story the other day by a favorite storyteller of the blogosphere, TheElementary. It was a wistful tale of her relationship with a tree named Mr. Willow.
It reminded me of the days of my forty daughters. Or that was what I called them then.
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“...But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
For a period of a few years, I could grow two things very well: roses and weeds. (The weeds actually grew themselves, but it was the roses that took some learning.)
In my olden days (the Starter Marriage years) I had a great need to plant something, to take care of that thing and watch it grow and be successful and bloom. Since the growing blooming wasn't happening inside my home or my life or my relationship, it took place outside, in the rocky square of hard dirt that was my backyard.
For some reason, I really took to roses. Or they took to me. I had no idea what I was doing when I bought my first rose bush, a miniature yellow peach rose that I planted in an old wine barrel and kept outside my patio door. I bought it for its vibrant happy nature, a personality that threw itself out from its perky little blossoms so that I had no choice but to take it home with me.
Of course, I half expected the little bush to die within a few months, but this plant not only grew, it fairly exploded with leaves and flowers. And such began my infatuation with the genus Rosa, within the family rosaceae.
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Roses are actually easier to grow than most people realize. They seem to have a reputation of being difficult to raise, when the truth is that there is a rose bush that will grow in almost any climate.
If you learn to speak rose, you will be treated like an equal. When you learn their little habits and preferences: where to prune, how to seal a wound, how to remove suckers, how to deal with aphids, rust and mildew, how deep to dig their holes, then you will have the truest friends ever.
When tended with true attention and care, roses will return your love with armfuls of flowers.
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Since I had no real inclination to be inside the gloom of my little tract home, I used to escape to the nursery to wander the roses and look for my next friends to take into the sisterhood of my backyard, the jumbled patch of weeds and blossoms.
Over time, I carefully embezzled money from the grocery shopping to fund my gardening schemes, and at the height of my rosedom, I grew over 40 bushes. I had every color and size, but my predilection was for English country roses, yellow and peach roses, and miniatures. I loved the tiny delicateness and Old World sensibility of Cecile Brunner and the overwhelming fragrance and happiness (and historical significance) of the Peace rose.
I tended my roses in all seasons, and was sometimes rewarded with two or even three sets of blooms in a year. I missed my friends terribly when winter came and I could only look outside to their bare branches, checking often for the little swellings where the new growth would start to emerge, signalling that Spring was on its way.
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And then one day it was time for me to leave that life and make an attempt for a truer and happier existence. I did not take much with me, because mostly everything I had I did not want. The china and crystal and photo albums stayed behind.
And so did my beloved friends. My forty daughters. There was no way to take them with me, and that broke my heart because I knew they would not survive without me.
I was sad for their little flower spirits (and my own) and hoped that they would forgive me for leaving them.
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Is it possible for a flower to be a friend? For a leafy being to be a relation? I think it is. When I see a glorious rose bush today, I often smile and think of my little family in the height of their beauty. They still bloom in my heart, my roses.
For those of you who love nature, plants and invisible friends, please do learn more about naturalist and 20th century enigma Opal Whitely. And for those of you who live in Oregon, you might visit her childhood town of Cottage Grove.
