I have enormous snowballing peonies on the south side of my house (and two more hearty but not-yet-blooming ones on the shady north side). I have two full vases on the counter, and was out cutting two jelly jars more to give to the friends I'm meeting for dinner later on. I like to cut these flowers. I like the way there are a few friendly black ants crawling around the plants, one in every flower, it seems. I like the way the old flowers, just past peak, shed their petals all at once if you give their stalk a shake -- the petals quivering as they fall, and smelling like soft white silky sweetness. I like the way the new buds shoot out from the elbows of the old, the tiny little red-tipped round heads on dark greeny-red stalks bursting out of the stalks right where a dark green leaf emerges from the main stem. I like the way the weight of these heavy rich white flowers will tip the plant over unless you stake it up. I like the way the petals hold dewdrops, so they seem always to be soft and a little moist.
While I was cutting my flowers three little neighborhood girls were playing a game in one of their dad's truck, parked at the curb at the end of my front walkway. They were climbing up over the rear fender into the bed, then jumping out the side. They were hollering to one another in their small sing-songy voices, telling one another the rules of a game that seemed to me unrelated to the climbing up and jumping out of the truck. "We're playing house! You're the stepmother and I'm the real mother." "What about Isabel?" "She can be another stepmother, because you can't have two mothers." "Look, look, this is where you jump out." "And that's the grocery store."
When I was done cutting I looked at my peony plant, still covered in big blooms. I cut another flower and offered it to one of the little girls. She ran squealing to her friends and soon I had two more girls approaching, one brazen and one squirmy and shy. I let them pick out the blooms they wanted and they plunged their noses into them. Pretty soon their moms approached. "Oh, how beautiful! Can I have one, too?" I passed around flowers and we introduced ourselves and talked about weather, and lawns, and the neighborhood.
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