Tuesday 13 January 2015

Funeral Flowers

I hate flowers 
I hate flower arrangement and flower decorations in buildings and ceremonies and places 
It always reminds me of death. That's what it looks like to me, those flower decorations at funerals. 

I've never been given flowers by a boy or anyone except my school to welcome me and even then it felt weird. It feels like a bad omen. 

Flowers die quickly after they are plucked and people know this but they still pick them because they're beautiful. 

A Japanese friend tried to explain it to me once. The Japanese really appreciate flowers. She offered me a flower that was  from a stage display that was taken down. I told her I didn't like flowers and she was shocked. When I told her why, she explained to me that we need to appreciate beauty while it's still there even though we know it will fade and wither away. Unfortunate to the situation she had just recently lost her father and this conversation made her a little emotional which made me feel sick with guilt so I apologized. She asked me to please not feel sorry for her or feel obliged to talk about it now because she'd had that plenty from people. I appreciated the honesty and then went on to observe the flowers more carefully. They were indeed beautiful. I still couldn't help but feel sorry that they were slowly dying in my hand. 

She must've sensed this because then she called her husband and asked him to explain to me why people pick flowers. He said that either way they would end up dying one day and that they were made for us to appreciate so we use them and then we let go of them when they die but feel hopeful when we know the spring will come again and new flowers will bloom. 

In the end I agreed and took the flowers. 

I still hate picked flowers. They remind me of funerals. The only flowers I can appreciate are those that continue to live in pot plants or on the earth. This January, my friend and I went to see fields upon fields of bloomed cosmos and we frolicked in them and even picked the ones that had been trampled and looked like they would die anyway. We both didn't want to pick the healthy ones. After appreciating the dying cosmos I threw mine away with somewhat a heavy heart yet feeling grateful that I could appreciate them before they died.  

I don't understand why we can't love things and appreciate them from a distance if that means preserving their life. I don't understand a love that is so possessive to the point that the threat of death makes ownership worthwhile. How can you love something to death just because you won't let it go? Love shouldn't be possessive or stifling or  deadly. 

Yes all loving things will certainly die one day and yes their beauty should be appreciated. Yes life is short and a glimpse into this madness of a puzzle but the short time we have should be thriving not suffocating. Should be nurtured not abused for what we can give. 

Do flower arrangers even bother to make specific stage designs for weddings or funerals? I've seen the same design in both occasions with just different colors and got sick to my stomach at the underlying symbol I saw from it all. It's all just temporary. Passing. Wind. 

I don't want picked flowers at my wedding. I want pots with blooming life on them. When my time of rest comes, then you can pick me flowers and then plant a tree on top of me. 

Another year, another birthday

How many birthdays will come with you secretly saying to yourself that I am not happy with the life that I have.
Each year counting the countless ways you have toiled and tried to make it better but all you have is failure and sacrifices and plans being jeopardized by those you care about most. Some days you smile anyway because  now smiling is a choice and happiness is an attitude and no longer a state of being or a condition set from satisfaction. You realize that satisfaction maybe is your choice but we don't all get what we choose. And all that stuff about happiness being a displacement, a result of the pursuit of God  or something else... You're starting to believe that now. Because every once in a birthday you look back and think the year wasn't so bad, or it could've been worse. That on the moments when you threw caution to the wind and said to yourself what the heck, whatever happens will happen and I'll survive it or die and either way that's fine, those are the days you started loving, pain and all. And in embracing pain and change and turmoil and loss, there was nothing left but joy to feel after everything that was meant to kill you didn't. Because you got broken over and over and over and over again so many times you no longer keep count because now it's become an expectation. You got betrayed and you're fully experienced with loss. You lost your mind even, a couple of times. Went looking for yourself just so you could grasp reality again when even that proved to be fickle. You remained. You stayed. The you that you're not even sure of anymore whether it's pieces of a soul or a broken heart or a mesh of ideologies or dreams or just a lie.  Its the you that is your flesh that survived it all. Perhaps to be reprogrammed again. Perhaps. Perhaps not. However you were there and you remembered just as you realized that you were all you needed in the world.