A Trip to the Flower Market
On a Busy December Morning
I’m on my way to buy flowers. It’s raining heavy and there’s a light fog covering the mainly dark green and grey landscape of the road leading to the flower market. My heart feels somewhat heavy on this December morning, as the season darkens on top of the major life transition of buying my first home, finding my first tenant, preparing for holidays. There are other transitions, too, and I’m thinking about loved ones, hoping they’re okay. Changing, feeling the feelings of being alive.
My head feels a bit heavy, too. Thinking about numbers, colors, spreadsheets, year-end bookkeeping, new year projections, budgets to stick to, meetings, and orders for the day.
I pull up to the flower market and press the button to turn off my Jeep. I look to my right and see my assistant, Julia, parked next to me. I give her a goofy smile and greet her with something like, “Good morning, sunshine.” There’s zero sun shining today, but Julia feels like sunshine. All the time, but especially in moments like this, I am so grateful that she’s here with me today to help carry the work and mental load. I have a big day of shopping ahead, picking out flowers and materials for a wreath workshop, a holiday party, subscriptions, and a weekend pop up.
The flower market walls are a limey chartreuse green and the LED lighting that fills the warehouse offer a bright—and a little intense—contrast to the gray outside. I’m quickly infused with that hustle-and-bustle feeling. I don’t see any familiar shoppers, but all the vendors are familiar faces. Hi Jacob, Hi Jamie, Hi Christian, Hola Reina, Hi Lou. I greet each of my vendor friends as I walk past them and into the large flower cooler, hoping to grab the items I need before the other shoppers get to it.
The large walk-in flower cooler bursts with fragrant flowers and holiday greens. The scents of sweet pea, peonies, roses, and cedar strike me. The cooler is always set to a brisk 39 degrees—the best temp to keep the flowers fresh. There’s bright lights and a low hum from the cooler motor. The explosion of color instantly makes me smile, kind of how rainbow sprinkles always made me smile as a kid, and still do.
I ask one of the vendors, Jamie, to pull boxes of Frasier fir, a Christmas box of greens, and then I ask her to recommend something extra that will look good against the former two. She tells me about the North Carolina cedar. I take a look at it and it seems a bit scraggly and stiff. I decide that the other cedar, which is an inviting green, with a soft and flexible texture, will be easier for the workshop attendees to work with. We settle on gold tip cedar, and we agree on how nicely that will contrast against the dark green fir and pine.
One of our holiday parties for this week will have flowers in burgundy red, true red, blush, plum, and amethyst colors, so we decide to base our pop-up and subscription flowers around these colors, too, so that we can offer a large variety of flowers in these color tones for each arrangement. A moody color palette for the holidays, especially with the blush and amethyst tones. Feels right!
We spot burgundy peonies; my client Sonia will love those. I see rows of red anemones and I’m lucky to score these, too, as they were on our wish list of flowers for the holiday party. I keep circling the flower cooler, selecting flowers that are eye-catching, complimentary, and long-lasting. We set the flowers on the cart, take a step back, and squint our eyes to make sure the colors are working well together. We flip flop on a couple of bunches until we finally settle on the order.
After I settle up with Jacob, Julia and I walk our flower cart over to the boxing area and I see this foam stand that Elmer made for his phone. So creative, I think. I ask if he made it to protect his phone from water. “I just like having my phone on a stand,” he says, with characteristic simplicity. I love it.
Julia and I pack up my car and drive the two minutes back to my studio space. Seeing familiar faces, taking in bright colors, and crossing things off the list boosts me for the rest of the work day. Back in the natural light of my studio space, everything is completely organized, just how I like it, and we’re ready to work. I put on a Lauryn Hill album, get the coffee going, and I’m into the zone as we get started on cleaning the flowers and assembling our orders. I love busy days of work like this. Funny how things can feel so heavy on the mind sometimes, and then instantly starts feeling lighter as the doing happens.
