I was already buying myself flowers

but thank you for the song bb

Last spring, Miley Cyrus’s song Flowers played on repeat in my head, and as per her instructions I did buy myself flowers and haven’t stopped. I would have bought them anyways, but because of the times we were living in, I did it to the sound of her break-up anthem. I bought the $9.99 and the $3.99 and sometimes even the $12.99 bouquets at Trader Joes. I bought six-packs of poppies and scattered them through the front yard. I made my own bouquets from what bloomed when spring was at its peak. When I was young, I shirked the ritual of the bouquet as a gift. I was a staunch rejector of anything that was particularly feminine, like receiving flowers with delight. Now that I’m a hundred and forty three, I arrange them in tiny bouquets throughout the house, as a reminder of my love.

We are coming out of winter yet again—me and the cats and my adult child.  The seasons feel like they’re all closing in on each other. Sometimes, it’s as though the earth is galloping around the sun, picking up speed at the end of a race. What’s the rush? I get home from my dad’s birthday dinner and the weeds in my front succulent and flower garden are almost as tall as me. This is the part where I feel shame for the elements triggering the germination of the wrong seed, for the shoots breaking through the soil and eating the sunlight. For the sunlight feeding the division of cells of a plant that I did not plant, that came into my garden on a gust of wind or the wing of a bird. This is the kind of thing that the neighbors see as they walk past, and say “Oh that house must be haunted.”

I have a vision of an art show, tea and painting party when my yard is in order. I will wear skirts with layers of ruffles and dark eyeshadow with pink lips and drink Queen of the South tea from my fancy lady tea set, and make art and talk about art and creativity and beautiful things while the garden blooms with things I planted and I have killed everything I did not bring in from the plant store. This is the only way to stop time.

My favorite cat stopped going outside for a few weeks, but is slowly creeping out with me again. Morticia has grown so neurotic that if anyone she doesn’t know comes over, she hides behind the couch. After they have left, her little black head will pop up like a little gopher emerging from her hole, as she checks to make sure the coast is clear. She used to go out in the morning and come back in at curfew. Now, she just sits in the cat tree all day. I wonder if it’s the builders erecting condos across the street that have her spooked. Sometimes it feels like we are one, like a reclusive energy flows between us, but also it might just be the effects of winter and colds and avoiding the weeds in the garden.

The fig tree is bare—just a trunk and a bunch of sticks. It’s the perfect time to shear the growth. In fact I’m writing from the garden as I had to face the fact on my run this morning that today is a gorgeous day and it’s time to come out. The buds at the ends of the fig tree branches are an omen, a threat. There are too many. I’m going to have to get out the ladder and lopers  and come out here and stop them before they destroy Thanksgiving with their fig bombs again. I count the big branches—the ones as thick as three arms that each have their own handfuls of shoots coming off of them. There are ten. I can divide the work across ten days. One day for each big branch, the way I divide my writing projects. I have to get to the weeds now, though, while the earth is still wet and loose from the rain. I will be merciless in the way I let some plants live and some plants die. I’ll throw the carcasses in the compost bin, let them become fertile soil in the future garden.

I wish my carcass could be thrown in a compost bin. Cremation seems such a waste after all this. And for your final act you will be incinerated into ash? When I die, I want to be planted as a tree in a cat sanctuary, but I think I have to start working on how to make that legal and ecologically sound now. It could take 40 to 50 years to plan for that. In case any of my descendants are reading this, I’m just writing it as a plan for myself, not instructions for you. If I didn’t previously work through all the logistics for this plan before I pass, you are not going to be held to it. Do whatever is the least burdensome. Bury my ashes somewhere where things grow, though. Do not dump me in the ocean like I’m a defective mobster that must never be found. You know I don’t like deep waters at night no matter how much I enjoy the sea.

We have entered the era of daylight savings. I can never figure out if my depression is seasonal, hormonal, tech-related, isolation-induced, or something I ate, but the trying to figure it out is probably part of the problem. Just think about something else for a change.

At his birthday dinner, I ask my dad if he ever has existential crises and at first he makes me repeat myself and then asks what I’m talking about. He says he’s already died once so he’s not going to worry about it.

I have this sense of wasted years. I have this habit of hiding in the dark.

I’ve come out of a long stretch of days where I was going through the motions, the unexamined life where I stuffed any question of what I was doing. I just complete the next task. I just pay the next bill. I just eat the next meal.

You think about what you wished for as a child, and that you were the only one that stopped it. You coulda. You coulda. You coulda. You can. You just pretend you’re a writer. You just play at it. Play with it. Think of weird things to do with it. Turn what you want into what you do. There’s no barrier but the imaginary ones inside of you.

I’m suddenly writing a Dr. Seuss book, but that’s okay, because if there’s anything my existential crises have taught me, it’s that nothing really matters and we’re all going to die, and the flowers will bloom if you root out the weeds, and even the weeds have flowers. It’s just that everyone hates them. And even if you don’t get planted as a tree and they burn you, you’re still there, just in another form. Everything just gets rearranged into eternity. But for now, just the flowers. Concentrate on the flowers. 

 Also happy day 100 of being alcohol free

Karli Boyd

For the next installment of the serialized memoir for paid subscribers,

click here