Bloom in process //Phan//

Root

Flowers were beautiful, gentle, emotional, and divine living beings. I loved to search for flowers of all shades and meanings, of all greater fun. For example, a yellow rose means joy, friendship and a lavender rose love at first sight. Sometimes I would come across a flower that I had never seen before, and therefore yet undiscovered it had no meaning then. So, I would give it one, I would cherish them. I liked inspecting their properties too.

It was hard to though, I was only 10 and didn't know much about the world. I only knew of the stories my parents told me, about vampires and witches, werewolves, and evil spirits. I feared those and that's why I always returned home before sunset. I knew how scary the village could be during the night and who knew what was lurking there. Only people out at night were beggars and the street scum.

But besides that, the village was boring and ugly, there was barely any flowers and all the houses were pretty similar. All of them dirty and old, mostly constructed of wood, hay and rocks. There was also a little church built of stone, sturdy and scary. I hated going there. Even though they represented themselves as something holy and good all they seemed to do was judge and hate on others for their differences.

I was aware most of them didn't like me, I was everything a boy shouldn't be. Careful, cheerful, forgiving and I liked flowers and sunrises. They all thought I wasn't tough enough, that I was girly. I didn't understand why that mattered, I wasn't doing any harm. So, what if I liked walks through the forest, sunrises and picking fresh flowers to display at my mother's window.

My parents didn't approve of what I was doing either, I had an inkling that my father thought of me as a disappointment and my mother blamed herself for creating a failure. Even though she seemed more accepting and would always take my flowers with a smile and a soft 'thank you' expressing her gratitude. My father would just grunt and mutter things I didn't understand yet. It wasn't as bad as when I had brought flowers home for the first time.

I was four back then, but as a male child I was already allowed freedom to do mostly what I wanted, unlike the girls in my village who stayed inside and weren't allowed to climb trees. I felt bad for them, their freedom was restricted just because they were girls.

I would often visit the old healer's wife who knew her way around all sorts of plants, poisonous or healthy. I had immediately liked her, she was giggly, funny and a silly old woman who loved playing. She was a child at heart, unlike all the other old ladies who just complained about everything they set their eyes on. Her name was Louise and I spent all my time with her and denied invitations from other boys to do reckless things like hunt squirrels.

She taught me about flowers and their numerous meanings, and unlike my parents she told me stories about beautiful nymphs and fairies who danced in the moonlight. They were divine creatures who nurtured nature and loved animals. I was immediately mesmerised by her stories and her flower teachings. Many started saying I was now without friends because I kept hanging out with 'the old hag', but I saw it differently. I saw myself in a new friendship with a lovely and funny woman who had wonderful stories.

"You see Philip, this flower is called a Bouvardia Double. "

She held up a stem with numerous pink flowers which were surrounded with soft green leaves. I looked at it completely awed.

"This flower represents in most cases enthusiasm, and can also indicate zest for life. "

She smiled at me and handed me the flower, I stared at it thoughtfully. How could nature create something so wonderful, so full of meaning? I didn't understand how mother nature worked but I hoped as I got older I would start to. Louise seemed to understand it, she was full of wisdom and yet hilarious.