In the shop
I’m sure the first draft of this entry was far better than this one. If this draft disappears for some reason, I can assure you there will be no third. Anyway, I wanted to start an accounting of ways that God has met me in the shop. Maybe you believe or maybe you don’t, and you’ll decide if it’s just luck or coincidence. I am convinced it’s a spiritual connection between heaven and earth.
Over the past ten years of our new faith community in Dillsburg, I’ve been asked to craft memorials for church friends who have passed from this life to the next. I don’t design traditional funeral flowers of densely packed carnations and mums in one or two colors and direction shoved into a pre- formed shape of a heart or a cross…just not my style. It doesn’t showcase the beauty in a garden with other colors, textures, sizes, and forms when they live in community, so I refuse to design in that fashion. Anyway, this most recent memorial was met with numerous barriers followed by resolutions, none of my doing, and always better than I could have planned.
Carl-a lifetime agriculturist both as vocation and hobby who is now free from burdens of cancer, passed away during this last December and his memorial was scheduled for the week between Christmas and the New Year. This is a week traditionally skeletally staffed or stocked in the wholesale floral world. Luckily, I needed to transport my mother home 5 hours away and would have access to my dream shop in the DC area. I would be able to reroute my travels and purchase blooms on the way home in time for the service. Simultaneaously, our family decided to take advantage of December cell phone deals and switch carriers. Even though we’d started the porting process one week earlier, the changing over of five old and new phones is never as easy as commercials proclaim, and during my transport I was without service and GPS. So I returned to Dillsburg empty-handed without flowers.
The morning of my build day, I had my usual chat with God, pouring out my heart on all things on my mind, uncontrollable, and seeing what He had to say. On design days I ask Him to work through me, that my hands may serve others through my blooms, well His booms. Afterwards, I did some gentle stretches, then checked emails and social media. A British Flower Market post came across my IG feed, about flowers for the New Year, representing new beginnings and rebirth. I thought “perfect for the new year, and also perfect for Carl”. In their review of flowers were two of my favorites…hellebore and pussy willow. Worth the 30 second watch.
So with no flowers in hand, I said “That’s okay…hardgood’s first”. So I trecked down to my husband’s wood shop, retrofitted as my floral studio, to grab my 14” wooden vessel and begin the armature insert. I looked in the traditional storage location, and no box. Okay…no box, and still no flowers. Then looking in the large box of baskets gifted to me from a church friend, retired florist BTW, I found an oblong produce basket. The kind made of thin slats of wood, lightly colored, and a flat handle, with a wood bottom. How ideal for Carl, who loved all things agriculture, then adorned with a burlap bow to cinch the theme of his life.
I then headed to Trader Joe’s. I’ve discovered that they have beautiful small bouquets of florist quality. (How they can get varieties my wholesalers can’t?). I walked in a right away selected the most “masculine roses” yellow sunset in color, then right beside them were a darker terracotta ranunculus, some interesting blue green eucalyptus type foliage, white veronica, white stock, but I still needed something else. I’d considered using my preserved green hydrangea and Spanish moss from the shop, but I needed something else. As I turned to the register, there was a shelf of white hellebores displayed with pussy willow! I paused, smiled, grabbed one of each, said a quick thank you to JC, and headed home.
No cell phone service, no shops open, no wood box, no flowers from a large wholesaler, but everything I needed, and better than I could have planned. Amen.
