I’ve budgeted for fresh flowers every week ever since my first job out of college. Back then, you could get a bunch of gladiolas at the grocery store for $3.99, which still felt like a splurge on my $150 a week newspaper reporter paycheck. I ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches for two meals a day and lived in a studio apartment in an iffy neighborhood of Atlanta, but I still came home to beauty every day.
Now I blow an indulgent $20 or $25 a week, which usually gets me two different types of flowers at Whole Foods, or several at Trader Joe’s. I love taking a bunch of six purple iris and arranging one or two stems each into several different vases. Or taking three white hydrangeas and bunching them into an old piece of white pottery. Seeing one peony or ranunculus in a bud vase makes me happy. Being able to have a fresh flower on each of our bedside tables is one of my favorite luxuries.
Flower arranging as meditation
Moving through the house and seeing fresh flowers on the dining room table, in the kitchen, the sunroom, and our bedroom is part of living the life I want to live. But the act of arranging them is kind of a meditation for me. Selecting vases, trimming the stems, putting together five or six different little floral delights, is something that seems to settle my mind and let me take a deep breath.
Some of my favorite vases are the handmade pewter ones from the Italian company MATCH. I also love using this large clear bottle from World Market for just one or two tall blooms, and these very inexpensive little square bottles for short stems. This Vietri hibiscus vase works well for a cluster of roses, with the stems trimmed very short. (See photos of all in the gallery below.)
Homegrown happiness
In the spring and summer, I can sometimes use my own home-grown fresh flowers from the yard. Walking outside to cut daffodils, tulips, camellias and gardenias makes me feel rich. I’ll even cut crocus and vinca, even though they only last about a minute. And for a stretch in the summer, every day that I’m in the office, I steal a magnolia bloom from the huge trees at the edge of our parking deck. (The security guards and leasing manager know I do this, and they graciously turn a blind eye.)
Channeling my old ladies
My mother used to keep a magnolia bloom on the kitchen table, floating in a silver bowl, all through the summer months. She did it because her mother had done the same, in a silver bowl on the round table in her foyer. And now I take my stolen magnolia bloom and float it in a silver bowl my grandmother gave me when I graduated from college.
Seeing that magnolia on my own kitchen table, with the scent that takes me back to childhood summers, helps connect me to those two women, both of whom had a gift for living well.
What are some of the simple things you do for yourself, that help you create a happier life? I’d love to hear them.
