Hi Neighbor!

The PHS Flower Show is coming, and I’m happy.

Not because I’m a plant person—I mean, I like plants, but I don’t grow them very well. I usually keep maximum three house plants at a time: a spider plant, a peace lily, and a large floor plant to make a statement. Inevitably, the statement I’m making is that I’m not very good with plants, as I’m vacuuming up dried, browned leaves.

I like the Flower Show because I know so little about flowers. I enter with no expectations; I observe with wonder, and I leave feeling no sense of inadequacy or envy. It’s not like I see a display and think, “I could totally do that,” or “Wha–they used a tulip there? A tulip? Really?”

I fancy myself a musician, so sometimes I do leave a good concert tinged in jealousy because I understand what it takes to be an excellent piano player. I understand what I’m lacking in talent and artistry. But I wander a flower show like I wander a bakery: taking in the sights and smells, happily ignorant of how it all came together. No clue; therefore, no judgment—only delight.

The Flower Show also means that it’s March. Ahhh, yes, Spring is coming–rebirth, awakening, the gathering of tiny, white snowdrop flowers newly popped, like a lifeboat amidst the sea of browned grass that is our front yard.

Bring on the Flower Power.

Colorfully yours,
Katie L