In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends
Flowers I was working on when I got “that” call
Image by Claire Bowen
In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.
— KAKUZŌ OKAKURA
I was half way through the arrangement above when the phone rang. Charles was away and I’d been feeling uneasy as my sister had been trying, to no avail, to track down my Mother. Although we are ten years apart in age, we have quite a strong connection, and when she is worried so am I. I had tried to cheerfully brush off her concerns, told her not to worry and returned to the kitchen to distract myself. The phone rang again a little while later. “You are going to have to be very brave” she told me, echoing, I already knew, what someone else had just told her. She relayed the facts, and told me that CID had requested that we didn’t go to the house as the situation was not a pretty one and they were currently treating it as a crime scene. There were more phone calls, one to Charles who was in Italy and then from a friend I’d texted to explain why I couldn’t chat at that moment. Thank goodness for friends like her. But then I was alone again, only 50% of my family had just died. I didn’t cry, or panic, except to worry about my sister… I returned to the kitchen and to the flowers. I continued arranging, quietly, thinking, and in that moment I felt closer to my Mother than I’d felt for some time. I won’t ever be able to explain why, other than to say that our views on many things were very different and not all our chats were calm and peaceful. (It transpired, many months later, at the Inquest that she had not been pushed down the stairs or hit over the head but had in fact tripped on a copy of her favourite newspaper as the supplement inside had made it slippery, and she had banged her head and died of brain injuries as a result. Our last conversation had been on the subject of Jacob Rees Mogg and I had actually told her that right wing journalism was bad for her health… perhaps one day we’ll have a laugh about that. But not yet). I finished the flowers, photographed them, and labelled them Mummy.jpg . They are by no means the most beautiful arrangement ever created, but I like to look back at those flowers as they represent a very significant moment. Likewise the arrangements I made for the Chapel on the day of her funeral - again I felt calm and connected to her as I made them. I talked to her as I grappled with chicken wire and foliage and heather to recreate my version of a Scottish moor, telling her she’d better appreciate my efforts and that I hoped she liked the wild looking spray. The connection I found with nature in those days somehow made me accept her passing as something that happens to all of us, even though her circumstances were somewhat unusual. At the service, my sister read a Eulogy. It was thoughtful and witty and hit just the right note. I chose a blog piece by The Gentle Author Bluebells at Bow about spring bulbs in an East London cemetery which reads as follows:
With the first bluebells in flower in my garden in Spitalfields, I was inspired make a visit to Bow and admire the display of bluebells sprouting under the tall forest canopy that has grown over the graves of the numberless East Enders buried there. In each season of the the year, this hallowed ground offers me an arcadian refuge from the city streets and my spirits always lift as I pass between the ancient brick walls that enclose it, setting out to lose myself among the winding paths, lined by tombstones and overarched with trees.
Equivocal weather rendered the timing of my trip as a gamble, and I was at the mercy of chance whether I should get there and back in sunshine. Yet I tried to hedge my bets by setting out after a shower and walking quickly down the Whitechapel Rd beneath a blue sky of small fast-moving clouds – though, even as I reached Mile End, a dark thunderhead came eastwards from the City casting gloom upon the land. It was too late to retrace my steps and instead I unfurled my umbrella in the cemetery as the first raindrops fell, taking shelter under a horse chestnut, newly in leaf, as the shower became a downpour.
Standing beneath the dripping tree in the half-light of the storm, I took a survey of the wildflowers around me, primroses spangling the green, the white star-like stitchwort adorning graves, a scattering of palest pink ladies smock highlighting the ground cover, yellow celandines sharp and bright against the dark green leaves, violets and wild strawberries nestling close to the earth and may blossom and cherry blossom up above – and, of course, the bluebells’ hazy azure mist shimmering between the lines of stones tilting at irregular angles. Alone beneath the umbrella under the tree in the heart of the vast graveyard, I waited. It was the place of death, but all around me there was new growth.
Once the rain relented sufficiently for me to leave my shelter, I turned towards the entrance in acceptance that my visit was curtailed. The pungent aroma of wild garlic filled the damp air. But then – demonstrating the quick-changing weather that is characteristic of April – the clouds were gone and dazzling sunshine descended in shafts through the forest canopy turning the wet leaves into a million tiny mirrors, reflecting light in a vision of phantasmagoric luminosity. Each fresh leaf and petal and branch glowed with intense colour after the rain. I stood still and cast my eyes around to absorb every detail in this sacred place. It was a moment of recognition that has recurred throughout my life, the awe-inspiring rush of growth of plant life in England in spring.
It’s genuinely one of my favourite pieces of writing, I’m hoping someone will read it for me when my time comes. It summed up what I needed to say in that moment. The connection between flowers and nature and that cycle of life is one that sits well together, assuming of course that there is a seasonal element to the materials. No amount of manufactured lilies from the other side of the world would have made me feel connected or part of a symbiotic process. But natural materials, ones that reflected our Celtic heritage and the moody weather, those were the ones that connected me to the cycle of life. A few weeks later I chanced upon the quote by KAKUZŌ OKAKURA and I started a draft post to remind me to come back to this when I felt ready. It’s taken me over two years but I feel ready now.
Dutch Still Life with Pearls by Claire Bowen
Image by Darroch Putnam
We had to wait six months (minus three days) to find out what had happened to our Mother. There was paperwork to sort out - so much paperwork! - a cottage to clear, and reports from the Coroner that at least one of us was obliged to read in the run up to the day at Court. Reading her post mortem report was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do, to be presented with a list of her body parts weighing a certain amount, stripped bare of all humanity. It was hard to concentrate on anything, to know how to feel, I needed a distraction. In the end my sister and I decided to make a trip to New York, our Mother’s favourite city, to remind ourselves of happier days. I took a deep breath, a couple of glasses of something strong, and boarded my first long haul flight in 23 years.
When we arrived, it became apparent that some of our ways of remembering her would overlap, such as visits to favourite sites, museums and, most fitting of all, bars and restaurants. But my sister, in many ways rather more like my Mother, outgoing and gregarious, wanted to meet friends, party and cut loose. I am not that person (I think that always disappointed her, to be honest), but I did have something else in mind. I booked myself onto not one, but two, Dutch Masters Still Life Classes that happily coincided with our week in the US. I brought with me her string of pearls, the item I associated most with her, with a view to incorporating them into each still life as my tribute to her. Would she have got it? I think so. Certainly, it gave me a sense of purpose when there was little else we could do but wait.
A quiet moment with Hilda
Image by Claire Bowen
I’ve written previously about how nature, flowers and the country played a big part in my recovery from serious ill health. Indeed, before Honeysuckle and Hilda was a thing, I (albeit briefly) had a website called Walking With Hilda, which recounted not only the accountability I now felt to go out and get walking, having decided to take on a little schnauzer puppy, but also who we met and what we saw along the way. Walking along the canal in Hackney, across Hackney Marshes, or around Victoria Park, I noted the birds we heard and flowers and blossom spotted. Soon we were marching across Hampstead Heath, and Richmond Park, and then finally out to the seaside and countryside in our quest for more nature and fresh air. So there can be no doubt of the restorative nature of flowers, specifically seasonal ones that we encounter when outdoors.
When I posted a question earlier this week on Instagram Stories, asking what it was about flowers that people most valued, their restorative influences came up many times. Some described them as therapeutic, and another word that came up often was grounding. “It’s so good for my soul” wrote one person, and several contrasted the feeling of calm they felt when they were around flowers as opposed to the chaos of modern life, with its fast pace and modern technology. A few were more specific, one saying that after chemotherapy they needed to be firmly grounded, and flowers did that for them. Another described a healing period after a difficult experience, and citing flowers as the vehicle for that recovery.
But I started this piece with a quote that mentions not only sadness, but also joy. And it is to joy that I shall dedicate the rest of this word count. For whilst flowers and nature undoubtedly saw me through some very dark moments, and have helped me to regain my strength, they have definitely been significant as we have celebrated joyous moments too.
A very happy day creating.
Image by Kristen Perers
By the time I asked Instagram how flowers made them feel, this post was already three quarters written, and based on a quote about joy and sadness. I made no reference to this when posing the question and yet joy was contained in so many of the messages I received “flowers bring me so much joy”, “ I love working with nature, creating with incredible ingredients and bringing joy”, “brings me so much joy every single time” and so on.
Weddings are surely the most obvious of specifically joyful events… (insofar as weddings, often accompanied by family politics, budgets, spreadsheets, logistics, large guest lists and interminable amounts of choices to make, are joyous occasions). At our own wedding, five times the size I might have liked it to be, and rather full of family pleasing compromises, I knew one thing at the outset - who it was that I wanted to do our wedding flowers. I emailed Miss Pickering, stating my date and budget asking just two questions - was she available and was it worth her while travelling down from Stamford to do our flowers? When she responded positively to both of those questions, I was happy to have been able to make this, to me one of the most important decisions around our wedding, to the point that I was prepared to compromise on many other issues (even if, four years later, I still raise some of those from time to time). Similarly, many florists who replied cited the happiness they felt when seeing a bride’s reaction to the bouquet that they had created for her. Certainly creating a piece that takes centre stage on such an important day is a privilege indeed (and a nerve wracking one, knowing that it will still be in the family photo album maybe fifty years from now).
Wedding bouquet by Claire Bowen (styling by Flint Lewes and Aesme Flowers)
Image by Kristen Perers
But a wedding is but one joyous moment in our lives - some of us don’t ever get married, and for others it isn’t the most joyous event, and certainly (hopefully) not the only one. As someone who loves to teach, the joy that comes from helping someone to create a beautiful floral piece is one of the things that make the sometimes long days, early starts, raking around in the garden in the rain and all the less glamorous bits seem worthwhile. It’s just such a wonderful feeling. The run up to a class is hard work, from the marketing to the flower growing/ ordering/ picking, to the conditioning, to setting up the studio and making sure everything is sparkling clean ,to getting refreshments ready … there is a lot to do. But the feeling I get then I see someone happily creating is such a buzz, and the rush I get afterwards when it’s all gone well … it’s pretty amazing.
There is so much joy also in the day to day of working with flowers. Perhaps not today, at the end of winter, when yet another storm is raging and the ground is sodden and yet there is still work to be done. But the peaceful feeling of working with flowers, quietly, perhaps reconnecting with nature in the garden as one works, or arranging a piece for editorial work/ social media… lots of people said how grounded and connected with the earth that makes them feel, and there is surely never a more important moment in time to appreciate that than now.
My first arrangement in our new home
Image by Claire Bowen
If I have to name my most joyous or pivotal moments of my forty something years, top of the list might be finally finding and moving into our first home together. The sale of both my home and my husband’s shortly after we married was followed by renting and a seemingly endless search for a home we both loved. We had agreed on nothing until we came cross this three bedroom cottage, part 18th Century pub, part 19th Century bakery and post office. As we viewed the house, I knew immediately that it was home, whilst Charles conceded that he hadn’t found a reason to hate it (this is, in fact, high praise indeed). It felt to me that if Agatha Christie and Virginia Woolf had been house mates, the house might have been a little bit like this. When we reached the main bedroom, I burst into tears, to the horror of my husband. We had found the house we knew instinctively we agreed on, but I had utterly blown our negotiating position. A few months later, we moved in. It was September and there were still flowers in the garden… Mrs Honey’s roses were in full bloom and I could see some lilac delphiniums dotted around, and a rogue foxglove and some pansies. I went outside and picked them. I found my favourite vase, and then a blank wall. To access it I had to clamber over three sofas and a pile of packing boxes, and there I perched as I made my arrangement. Was it the most helpful thing I could have done on moving day? Arguably not. Is it one of the fondest memories that I’ll still have twenty years from now? Definitely.
A few days later, after many boxes had been moved, I sat down with a cup of tea and my new book. I’m a big fan of Persephone’s publications, and having exhausted all of Dorothy Whipple, I decided to try something new. I hadn’t read anything by Lettice Cooper before, but I was drawn to the appropriately titled The New Home. As I sipped on my tea, I came cross this passage, which, just like the piece by The Gentle Author, summed up my own experience so well:
She left the others in the sitting-room, and rummaged among the unpacked glass and china on the hall table until she found a cup-shaped bowl of clouded glass. Arranging a bowl of flowers was her passion. By choosing strange colours and putting them together, conducting the vivid discords in a brilliant harmony, she expressed and satisfied a deep, unsatisfied longing for charm and colour. She ran out into the garden and picked, apparently at random, but really with design, a dark red rose, the scarlet flowers of a geum, a handful of flame and gold nasturtiums, a spray of Michaelmas daisy, shafts of golden rod, a cluster of wine coloured pansies, grown small in flower and branching in stalk with neglect and the want of cutting. She carried the flowers in and put them one by one in the clouded bowl, lifted them gently, setting free their airy grace with a light touch, as though she shook loose a flock of butterflies in the air. “Oh Roddy!” Delia exclaimed. “How lovely!”. “You are a funny girl!” her mother said, half fretfully. “Fancy bothering to arrange flowers with all the house such a mess!”. “I think it was very clever of Rhoda to find them”, Aunt Ellen soothed in a kind, flat voice. “Flowers make a room look like a home. I always say that nothing else makes so much difference”. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And there you have it. Lettice Cooper absolutely nailing it in 1936. . .
Thanks for reading x
