Flower Picking

"Two words from him, and I had seen my pouting apathy change into I’ll play anything for you till you ask me to stop, till it’s time for lunch, till the skin on my fingers wears off layer after layer, because I like doing things for you, will do anything for you, just say the word, I liked you from day one, and even when you’ll return ice for my renewed offers of friendship, I’ll never forget that this conversation occurred between us and that there are easy ways to bring back summer in the snowstorm."

This was the line from Call Me by Your Name that came to mind when I saw a bunch of the yellow flowers I used to call sour grass as a kid growing straight out of the recently redone brick floors of my parents’ backyard. Now I know that they are technically called sorrels (thank you, Google). My third post ever on my Instagram account shared some of my favorite quotes from the book.

Spring has barely begun, a few sunny days here and there, and I’m already fantasizing about summer days, like in Call Me By Your Name, iced tea in mason jars, big rings of condensation on the table, open-faced books turned page down, left mid-paragraph as I remembered to attend to something. Perhaps it is because the days have not become sweltering just yet that I’m romanticizing such days. It’s easy to forget the feel of slick sunscreen on my skin, the awkward tan lines, the limp hair.

I was picking flowers for my mom, a tradition I’ve kept up since I was a child and would pick daisies for her bathroom. She never seems particularly exuberant when I do so unprompted, but she keeps the water fresh, so I suppose she must like it. The white leek flowers are back this season, despite a long absence after the upheaval of the backyard for remodeling. It seems poetic to see first hand how survival is the only option in nature. White leeks, mint, dandelions. I picked them all, even sawing at a few peach blossoms on the tree that refuses to produce fruit after all these years.

The kitchen scissors I used to cut the flowers fell from being clamped between my arm and side on my way back, my hands too full of white blossoms already starting to smell pungent (they are, after all, leek flowers). The handle broke, and I guiltily left them on the counter, unsure of how to break the news to my parents. Sometimes I still feel like a meek child.

There’s a few months until summer. Let me romanticize until then. 

April 2, 2024