If you want to feel old really quick go to a lecture on Victorian flowers, fans and calling cards and when the costume curator from the local museum asks for a show of hands of people who know about the “language of flowers” raise your hand. I was one of four in an audience of over a hundred people who knew people in past centuries used flowers to send messages about feelings they dare not speak out loud. So why would one go to a lecture like that? For me, I got intensely interested in all things Victorian through reading historical romance novels but even before my decade of torrid reading I got hooked on Victorian furniture in my twenties, when I bought a Victorian parlor set at an estate sale. One would never guess that now, looking at my cowboy and Indian themed living room. The only thing Victorian left in the house is a table and lamp banished to the spare bedroom.
Back to flowers: I actually learned about the language of
flowers before my Torrid Reading Decade. It was introduced to me at floral
design school back in mid 1960s and when I first became a wedding designer in
the floral industry. I actually did have a few customers in the early days who
knew and wanted to incorporate the language of flowers into their weddings. The
museum curator took the language a step farther than anything I had read before
in my handy dictionary of flowers and their meanings by explaining why some the flowers got their “secret”
meanings. For example, a peony translates to ‘shy’ and most liking got that
meaning because to open they need ants to help them…shy to meet the world
without help. The language of flowers actually goes back centuries before the Victorian
Age and some plants, like mistletoe, still hold on to their original folklore meanings today.
Fortunately or unfortunately---I can’t decide--- before the lecture I had already purchased a bunch of plants to put in a narrow space in between my garage and the sidewalk leading to the front door. Otherwise I probably would have ended up with Scabiose aka The Devil’s Bit aka pincushion flowers stretching the entire twenty-two feet. You never know when a kick-back-to-the-past suitor might come knocking on my door and the pincushions would tell him that a widowhood lives inside. It would be like a flashing warning signal, “Beware, the person inside lost her love!” Instead, I’m confessing my love with moss roses mixed with hens, chickens and succulents. It was kind of funny watching my lawn care guy and his help plant those plants. (I can’t get down on my hands and knees with my three fake joints.) One started planting at one end, and the other started at the other end. I could tell they weren’t going to match up. Sure enough, one end had to be done over. When the guy asked me which end I thought looked better thus would stay as planted, I said, “Your end will look best the second half of the summer and her end will look better the first half of the summer. How's that for a diplomatic answer?”
Not much else is going on here on Widowhood Lane this weekend. Same old rigmarole. Jeez, do people even say that anymore? I suppose they do in the form of ‘same old same old.’ My dad used that word---rigmarole---a lot and I haven’t thought about it in years. It’s just as much fun to say now as when I was a kid. I miss my dad. He was such a wise, gentle and compassionate guy. He could see the best side of anything or anybody. Being this is Mother’s Day weekend I should put in a good word about my mom as well. She was a strong person with many talents whose growing-up years were extremely difficult and they made a pretty good team. ©
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| Mom and Dad |
