Life Is Bouquets From the Garden

How I Start Each Day

My favorite morning routine

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

Henry David Thoreau

Early every morning, I wander through my yard, selecting flowers, leaves, and other oddments, and return inside to make bouquets. That cheerful beginning to the day is the pleasurable enticement that coaxes me out of bed.

I have tried many types of music to wake me in the morning, from the gentle pulsing of Native American Flute Songs to the stirring exhortation of “Ride of the Valkyries.” Right now it is “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, which combines accepting reality and overcoming adversity with an underlayer of comforting rhythms.

every little thing is going to be alright

Once I drag myself out of the bed, most of my morning routines are unhappy combinations of drudgery, necessity, and habit. Wash my face, brush my teeth, brush my hair.

Occasionally, there is the 30-second cold shower intended to increase my will power, cultivate my grit, and make me so miserable that the rest of the day can only go up from there.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

Mark Twain

A few routines are pleasures: making the bed (after my usual night of chaotic dreaming, I love imposing order on something) and drinking that first cup of medium roast coffee, bathed in cream.

What goes best with a cup of coffee? Another cup. Henry Rollins

There is a soothing fascination in watching the cat alternate between a hungry shark circling of the food bowl and a hypocritically affectionate twining around my ankles after he rouses himself from his own dreaming.

And in the morning wake like a new-opened flower — D. H. Lawrence

I cherish this thought, but I am more like someone abruptly transported from another realm. I awaken quickly but then have difficulty crossing the boundary between the dreamy haziness of nighttime and the sharp reality of the daytime.

Joyfully wandering through the yard is my transition. Strolling along the winding paths of the garden, picking a flower here and another one there, anchors me to the waking world.

It is always early morning as I make my selections, because it is, after all, a start of day routine. The time changes with the movement of the sun and the passing of the year.

Six o’clock in June becomes eight o’clock in December. Bare feet and a fluttering nightgown in summer change to boots and my husband’s heavy pullover in January.

Sometimes I select what catches my eye, almost at random. On other mornings I will have a theme: specific colors, whether variations of orange to evoke autumn or a perky contrast of blues and pinks as if I were decorating for a gender announcement party; a restriction to leaves and branches, using no flowers; or gatherings only from a particular flower bed.

The arrangement itself is a scarcely formed concept, a tantalizing glimpse that hovers in the far corner of my mind.

The yard offers choices that, like my clothes, change as the months go by and the seasons alter.

Winter presents pinecones and holly branches, the persistent ivy and red-tinged nandina, and in late winter the creamy-white and light pink blooms of the hellebore.

Our Lady’s Tears with its rows of tiny white bells and the tremulous crimson Bleeding Heart herald the spring and then give way to the bright yellow, white, and orange daffodils and narcissus, followed by pink, purple, and red tulips.

Summer and fall are the seasons of abundance, with dozens of flowers and flowering shrubs throughout the yard. Most thrive for a few weeks and then die back while a few hardy specimens bloom from May to October.

Once I dreaded getting out of bed, facing tasks to accomplish, boxes to check off, and mundane duties to undertake. Musts and shoulds abounded everywhere I looked.

How much time and effort do I owe here, there, and everywhere?

Now, thinking of the flowers, I rise from my bed and slip easily into my routine, letting the rest of the day unfold from there.

I wake. The day calls my name, Waving the early morning light Through my open window.

Hey sleepyhead! Good news knocks on your door. Go open it, See who is waiting there.

Rise and shine, Greet the sun. You’re on the way, It’s a radiant day.

May sunshine surround you each new day. And may smiles and love never be far away.

Catherine Pulsifer

The Fortune Teller once worked in a magnificent botanical garden.