I have this thing with flowers. I know Anne of Green Gable thought pretty flowers like roses should be given beautiful names, never be called "Skunk Cabbage". But for me, I don't know how to put it...it's never just how pretty a flower is that draws me. I feel like there are millions and billions of pretty flowers in the world...but I'm strange...Japanese would call me "heso-magari", or a person with a screwed-up belly button". I need a flower that inspires me.
20 years ago, when we were living up in Koriyama, I remember seeing a tiny field flower which, on a normal day, looked pretty insignificant. But on a morning after the rain...OH! I HAD to take a picture of THIS! It looked like it was dripping with CRYSTALLINE ORNAMENTS! I know people step on these tiny blooms rushing to floral shops to purchase orchids that cost a hundred times as much money....
Then there was the year I'd been sick and unable to get out to the park when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and the park was, I heard, looking like a dream. I'd rushed out when I got better but most of the flowers had already fallen from the trees. I remember seeing ONE twig with just a few blooms almost breathing their last, saying, "June...up here...look!" and I snapped a photo before they fell. I'm sure a lot of people take a lot of pictures of a lot of cherry blossoms, but few flowers would've been appreciated as those few were that day.
When tourists to tropical islands think of the hibiscus flower, they picture the popular, robust, bright red floral burst many girls stick above their ears. Of course, others prefer the pink, yellow, or orange variety. But they're usually the large, strong flowers. But my favorite hibiscus species ? I saw it one morning, dangling on the riverbank in front of our house in Okinawa. I wonder if that plant is still there. I haven't been out on a walk yet. It is a small, dainty, red and white flower that hangs upside down, and its petals look shredded, but it seems to bloom just for the person who pauses on a slow walk.
Our new home is situated about three minutes' walk from our cousin whose mother gave us the land on which to build it.
"I remember your Mom;" she once told me, "She'd see a grass growing on the side of the street, know what plant it was, would wrap it up in tissue, put it in soil in an eggshell at home and water it." She smiled, remembering. "And she would come back one day with a beautiful flower!" My mom was a botany major.
I pray my cousin herself would take in the Water of Life to bloom beautifully too.
