There were two women who provided floral arrangements for their church. One took care to pick fresh flowers, adding greenery to frame the yellows and reds. She chatted with the blossoms as if they were alive, which I suppose they were. If one had a drooping head, she would support it with a firm stem, rather than snip it off. It was not her intention to make a perfect bouquet, but rather one that encompassed buds, ripe roses, and even petals past their prime.
The other woman would take her turn the next week, brushing away spent leaves and water spills curtly. It was her belief that the arrangement should be flawless, and silk flowers achieved this. The congregation was thirty feet away anyway, and could not tell the difference. Or so she believed. There were no brown spots, no spent irises. Neither was there fragrance.
The women volleyed back and forth... real, not real, real.
A friend described the disparity between the present moment, and everything else.
"The only thing that is real is now. Yet we easily slip into the imaginary spaces. It matters little whether we are idealizing the good ol' days, or fretting about what may come. Either way we eclipse what is genuine."
This resonates for me. When anxiety about dire possibilities leans in with its weighty head I can succumb, even if today I am safe. The aroma of soup simmering nourishes me, even before I lift a spoon.
One time John and I were driving with friends to a restaurant. The traffic was gnarly, and the man at the wheel apologized for the delay.
"But we are as much with you now as we will be with menus in our hands."
Such contentment visits me on occasion.
