Tulip Pick-Me-Up

 

My mom used to have friends pick up a small bouquet of tulips from the grocery store on her behalf and deliver them to one of her other friends for a special occasion or no occasion at all. It made them feel good to do a good deed, she likely reasoned. It was far less expensive than the flower shop — especially if she neglected to reimburse the deliverer — and the visit was more meaningful than a formal delivery. Sometimes I buy flowers to cheer me. I did so today.  It is freeing at times to be a little selfish, if not extravagant. I brought pink tulips home from the grocery store and went about decorating my apartment with them. Somehow, I envisioned it differently. The bouquet would look bigger and the vase would be full, not half empty. It would sit atop my dining room table draped with a linen tablecloth — I don’t seem to have one — beside a tall, crisp white candle. The pile of papers with the list of things to do that I might one day do would be out of my field of vision. I might sit at the head of the table the way some published writers do, a fountain pen poised over a fresh tablet crafting phrases and paragraphs so profound that people would come from miles around to hear me recite them. I would humbly apologize that I had no copies of my (yet unwritten) book to sell if they inquired. Keep them wanting more I could hear my mother say. There I would sit in the ladder-backed chair, not one hair askew wearing my freshly-pressed paisley blouse, the same one same I donned when I had my author photo taken ten years and ten pounds ago to put on a book jacket when I published a book. There would be a plate of finger sandwiches and a few Nanaimo bars on a tray in front of me, but I would push it away. I can’t eat another bite, I would say to myself, moving away from the scene into the pantry in search of potato chips or ju jubes.