The Recital Bouquets

Baby Girl had her end-of-year dance recital recently. Despite going to these, and numerous competitions every year for the past 12 years, I still tear up when she takes the stage. Maybe because I see her growth and how she has progressed from the tiny little thing in a pink leotard turning the wrong way on the stage, to this beautiful precise dancer performing in all styles of dance. I love every second of it. We can’t wait to shower her with performance flowers at the end.

Which leads me to the picture you see. The family took separate cars to the recital to accommodate everyone. Somehow my husband ended up with the flowers and kindly brought them home while I went out to pick up food for a celebratory dinner. When I arrived home, he was just putting the final touches on these “arrangements” and he was SO proud. He presented them with a flourishing gesture of his hands.

“Look,” he said, with a big smile. “I not only put the flowers in water, but I arranged them.” 

He gets an A for effort, but, um, let’s analyze the details. First, the sunflower “arrangement.” There is clearly a severely broken flower stem that no amount of water will resuscitate. It’s falling in such a way as to look embarrassed that it is even taking up space in the vase. And why clip the stems when you can just have a tall, sparse, erratic grouping with lots of light coming through? No notes, babe!

Now the small “arrangement” which is actually two bundles bought separately. And you can tell they are two separate bundles because he left them rubber-banded together. The stems are covered with leaves so that you will enjoy the fuzzy beauty of them rotting at a quicker pace in the water. The gap between the two bundles adds a special je ne sais quoi to the “arrangement” you usually don’t see but I feel is underrated. 

My husband could tell that perhaps I wasn’t as impressed as he was with himself. His face fell. 

“You don’t like it?”

I felt bad. 

“No, I love it. Super job. But maybe I might make a few edits. You know, just for the sake of blending well with the other decor in the house. I think maybe this is too avant-garde for our style aesthetic. You are ahead of your time.”

That seemed to work. The dead sunflower has now retired to his final resting place and no longer has to feel ashamed to be around the other flowers.