Now that we live in the countryside, I can see my irises in bloom. When we used to come here only for the summer, I only ever saw leaves, masses of leaves. So it is a real delight to see them blooming and since there are quite a few flowers, I cut some and arrange them. I take forever because I am clueless. The flowers seem to have a life of their own and  all bunch up on one side and leave a bald spot in front and when I try to take out one stem to move it, the rest follow, not just the irises but the honeysuckle or fern or whatever greenery I’ve managed to put in with them. So I start over. I cut off a bit of stem because it is too tall. Guess what? Then, it’s too short! I take out a shorter vase, play with the height of the irises, remembering my one Ikebana lesson. Three flowers representing heaven, man and earth, therefore of varying heights. Only mine start out looking like heaven, then when I want to trim the other two to represent man and earth, the whole bouquet looks more like just earth!

The teacher also said that I am the sun and the arrangement should face me and please me. That’s good because I make only one-sided bouquets anyway, meaning they only look good on one side. Hey, what do you know? I was doing Ikebana without knowing it! Ha!

I never look at my watch when I start arranging and I do it when I am in the best of moods, usually in the morning, with nothing on my calendar. It is something I like to do but struggle with. I stick the flowers one by one –irises or roses or brooms or camellias, whatever is blooming – I step back, I trim and when I’m happy, I stick the greenery and that’s when it’s touch and go. The greenery pushes the flowers to front, side or back and teasing the flowers back to where they were initially becomes an exasperating art. The art of patience. With myself. When I look at the flowers, I don’t have an arrangement in mind. I just want the flowers to look good. Not Ikebana or any other style. Just pleasing to my eye and that takes enormous time and effort.

I don’t know what I want. I just know that what I am seeing is not what I want. I guess that is a start. So I fiddle, I cut, I pull, I push, until there’s that one moment when my hand stops in mid-air and I barely take a breath because now, yes, at last, this is it!

So much like life. Start with flowers, your gifts, talents, what you’re good at. Greenery, your environment, whatever teaching, training needed to develop your talent. The vase, something solid inside of you to hold them all together. Water, nurturing from inside and outside. Now, have fun arranging.