On Flowers and Time

Every Sunday, I buy a bouquet of flowers for the kitchen table. Now that more and more flowers are blooming, spending my $5 worth of flower money each week at the farmers market is a colorful treat. I know some people think that cut flowers are silly, even pointless. "Why buy cut flowers when you know that, in just a short while, they will die?" I've heard people say.
To me, buying flowers for my home is a kind of affirmation of a lot of things I am trying to remember these days. Yes, my flowers will indeed inevitably die. But isn't that kind of the point? They are a small, lovely, temporary offering each week. The fact that they do not last forever and that I continue to buy them almost religiously each week is one of the most tangible reminders I can think of to stay in the moment. The flowers are here, they are glorious, and then they are gone. As William Blake says (and my mother likes to remind me), we must "kiss the joy as it flies."