My mother’s garden always had a whoosh of zinnias. Surely among the best cut flowers but she never cut them and when I complained about the absence of fresh bouquets in our house she’d say “I think flowers are happier outside.” She wasn’t a fresh bouquet kind of person (preferring to make dried ones out of dead things in the fall) which at the time made no sense to me and felt more like she was being intentionally difficult, denying something that mattered to me just to make a point or exert her mother power. Who doesn’t like cut fresh cut flowers??

Lordy lordy. Seeing my own zinnias this morning, reminded me of all that and made me laugh. I may have over-analyzed her motives, i.e. got it wrong, because… seeing my own zinnias this morning, I thought: I like flowers outside better. And anyway, I have cats that eat bouquets. And to be honest I love those dead dried fall things.

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