Spring Blooms

The Romance and Rituals of Flowers

With the arrival of spring produce in the market comes the prospect of many gastronomic pleasures. But for me, the most precious heralds of spring are flowers. I count the days until the crocuses will pop up their little heads and cherry blossoms will appear seemingly overnight, their petals scattering almost at once to cover the ground like a snowfall. When I observe the dance of the tulips and daffodils, something stirs within me.

I may sound like a Romantic poet, but you should understand: I grew up with flowers, some cultivated in our huge garden, others found in the fields and woods surrounding my grandmother’s house in Alsace. Next to cooking, flowers were my mother’s great passion; she couldn’t live without them. Neither can I, whatever the season. Like meals, they were part of our daily rituals. I loved learning their names, picking them and helping Mamie create her gorgeous, unfussy bouquets. Early on, I was taught the loving care they demand once taken from the garden and placed in a vase. As a little girl I learned to cut the stem diagonally and change the water every other day. And in a big house with flowers in every room, this was no small chore. But to handle them, to smell them as they opened until the bloom was off them, intensified the experience of having them around. It still does.

As fortune would have it, I married someone who enjoys flowers as much as my mother did. On Saturday mornings in springtime, our sensory nourishment includes going to the greenmarket to bring home some of these perfect tokens of the first season. Flowers don’t have to be expensive, and you don’t need tons: as in all things, less can be more. One or two simple stalks of sweet peas in a small vase can provide great pleasure, adding a dash of color and a delicately sweet scent to a room.

Flowers, Mamie told me, are very much like us, none more so than the tulip. Tulips smile at you, talk to you, let you know when they need water, have too much light; and before they die, they are at their most serenely beautiful, stems flagging as if reaching out for a final embrace, the folding petals expressing in their contortions every imaginable emotion. Just look at them. The shapes are fascinating: the small, round petals and the pointed ones; the so-called long-stemmed French tulips and my favorite, the parrot tulip. As for colors, tulips, like roses, come in an astonishing variety, and I can remember every one in our garden. The first spring tulip announced to me what was coming. Tulips still lift my spirits when I see them in a vase, though never more than when I see them rising from the earth in springtime.

By then, I am delirious with spring fever. I find myself buying armfuls of flowers, drinking in scents and colors. The vernal mania extends even to selecting more brightly colored linens for the bed and table, putting away the austere monochromes or crisp whites I love in winter. Fortunately, I have long been in the habit of undertaking spring-cleaning in late winter (actually a very therapeutic exertion on a gray Saturday afternoon). By springtime, I know where everything is to be found in the closets, and I won’t find myself doing chores when all I want is to be outside.