With What You Have | 88

Traveling blooms

When the loveliest of flowers are delivered to your door just before you’re due to leave for several days, don’t despair. Take them with you.

Yes, all those whorls of petals atop their nodding stems? Arrange them in the alabaster* vase, then tuck it into a cardboard box, packed around sturdy with crumpled paper. Those pastel blooms will travel just fine. (But do tent them under a thin plastic bag between house and car and house, to keep the frost off.)

And all those days away, while you sleep and wake and brew cups of tea and knit and read and curl up under a throw and have long chats with a friend and watch the snowflakes fall, there they’ll be, your gift blooms in the alabaster vase, sitting at the edge of the room on that old oak table in a pool of fallen light, petals opening wider, and wider, and wider still.

Do what you can with what you have.

*And should ever you come across an old alabaster vase that’s banged up and unfortunately marked with age (and red polish from a wayward brush), remember that it’s a soft stone, and when you rub it over with the finest grit sandpaper, or even the scrubby side of a sponge, all the ugly will disappear.

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Words about contentment inspired this series that celebrates ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness.