Dear Rosemary,
Has it really been 15 years since you hired me to come process flowers at Rosetree? Waco’s premiere florist shop on the corner of 6th and Webster is now the Silos Bakery. I know we are both laughing…or maybe crying. In some ways it seems more like 30 years. So much life has happened between now and then. I was a college kid who had no idea what I wanted to do and in many ways lived more in the clouds than on the ground. Pursuing a degree in Philosophy, my interest was wrapped up in an inner-world that I did not yet know how to materialize.
Despite my wandering mind, you took a chance and entrusted me with an orange grip florist knife and endless packages of roses. In some ways it was the perfect job for me not knowing where my life was headed. I could think all day in that little processing room, just processing away in my own mind as I did the flowers.
You sent me on deliveries throughout the city of Waco in a white van that was always tuned to NPR. I loved driving around town bringing people colorful arrangements, knowing that the flowers you made brought an unsuspecting dose of joy to the recipients. It was also another opportunity to escape into the depths of my own mind. One afternoon Rosetree received a phone call informing you that the flowers I had left on a porch wilted in the Texas heat. You were always so gracious with me when my instincts for the job were… let’s say less than keen. I knew almost nothing about flowers at the time. I did not grow up with flowers in my home or in the spaces I occupied. While you were understandably upset, it made me realize that flowers were not just objects, they were living beings.
This morning as I was cleaning the floor of my studio, I recalled the time when Hartley caught me sweeping the floor at the end of a work day. “What are you doing? Let me show you how to sweep.” He took the broom from me and with two hands on the stick, he attacked the refuse on the floor with the efficiency and determination of a war horse. That floor was clean in half the time that it took me. Moments like this slowly began to bring my head out from the sky and closer to where the flowers were growing. Not only was I becoming more attuned to my job duties, but to the physical world around me.
Though my tasks never involved me designing—an act of wise discretion at the time— I watched you, Emily and Amber create magic with blooms. One day on the way home from work, I called my mom and told her that I wanted to become a florist some day. This call was undoubtedly relieving to a mother who was likely worried at the thought of what her daughter might do with a philosophy degree post college.
Watching you run your business while raising a family, taking care of your community and supporting Hartley through his health challenges taught me that women can carry heavy things. As I embark on my own journey as a young mother, I imagine what it must have been like for you in the early days running a business and raising two little ones. The financial challenges, the uncertainty of a budding business and the daily tasks of meeting your children’s needs are all things I hold close in my heart to this day.
While the difficulties of life do not disappear with age, my hope is that the legacy of inspiration you have given me might lighten some of the world’s weight. Thank you Rosemary. Before I met you, I had never really seen a flower. You have opened my eyes to the depths and beauty of this physical world, though messy and broken as it is. Rosemary of Rosetree you are a gift to this world.
(* How I wis, I had pictures from this era. So rather I am just going to insert pretty pictures rooted in the inspiration you gave).
