Vases and Flowers

Ever since I broke the $5 vase purchased some 25+ years ago from George’s Folly ferreted out from the Souk-like atmosphere between incense, bulky jewellery, strange statures and Indian cloth, I have had only had the egg-shaped vase. That I bought for my mother when I was nine. She had liked it when she saw it at Weston’s Greenhouse, a place smelling of flowers and damp earth. I had paid for it from my milk money, no great sacrifice since I hated the milk served in fourth grade. It was delivered in small bottles with paper stoppers early in the morning, left in the hall between the first and second grade rooms with enough ice to puddle but not enough to keep cool.

After my mother died I recaptured the vase and shipped it to Europe when I moved. However, it is not the type of vase to plunk flowers into. It is the type of vase wgere a flower arranger needs to anchor each stem in either that green florist spongy stuff or glass marbles.

The red vase isn’t a vase at all, but a metal Coca-Cola bottle purchased for the special occasion of the 11th birthday of Barbara’s grandson who was visiting at the time. The bottle was more festive in his eyes, I suspect, than champagne would be in the eyes (or taste) of an adult. I scooped the bottle and when I find a rose of just the right colour to match the pattern or the red, out it comes.

Perhaps next year in vide grenier sale on the 1st of May I will find another vase with enough memory potential to make it worth my while to carry it home.