March 1, 2017 – March Flowers

        I have always had this weakness for Daffodils. 

In fact, I have my own quote I created when I was a young woman – not even married. 

You cannot plant enough daffodils in your lifetime.

What I call daffodils includes the genus of narcissus and jonquil.  Once in a while someone will correct me due to actual genus, but more often than not they will correct me due to what the locals call them.

But, after many years here in North Carolina, I meet a lovely woman, a co-worker, who noticed a fresh bunch on the corner of my desk and admired them.

“March flowers” she said and stopped to chat on the way to the lunch room.   It made me smile and question her as we were in February and I had brought in some of the precious few that had bloomed ever so early in the warmth of a sheltered southwest garden.

“March?” I questioned.

“That is what we call them down here.” She answered not concerned that it did not match the calendar in the least bit. 

        Every year now that I glimpse my first daffodil, narcissus, or jonquil I smile and say out loud, “March flower – you are early” and remember to drop my friend a note or give her a call as it always breaks the ice nicely between us as time slips by so quickly.  We don’t get to see each other very much anymore.

        My first recognition of daffodils was in elementary school in Massachusetts.  We had a lovely penmanship teacher that came in and taught us how to write, [down here in the South they call it cursive], but we always called it penmanship.  I can picture her still, a lovely woman, thin, tall, and prim and proper.  She was also the art teacher that came in every so often – I don’t remember it if was weekly or monthly – that was a long time ago.  But, in the spring when the pussy willows were in bloom she would bring in a couple of daffodils and a few stems of pussy willows in a very simple clear vase, [and I pronounce it ‘vaahza’ and am corrected all the time.]

        Magically, a water color paint box and a brush would appear on all our desks and the teacher would show us how to paint the simple lines of the pussy willows and how to mix paint to make the gray catkins.  Then she would draw on the chalk board the radiating petals of the daffodil and the cup and it simply thrilled me to watch her dip her brush in the yellow paint pan and make the simplest of strokes and this yellow cupped flower would appear on her paper.   It looked so simple, until us first grader’s tried on our papers.  Later we would move on to the green leaves and with a few adept sweeps of her brush she would show us how to make a stem and a thin leaf that twisted at the top with just the twist of her slender wrist or something.

        It was magic to me and I am sure I went home with my first-grader’s rendition of a pussy willow with daffodils and showed it to my mom probably proclaiming, “I want to be an artist” after I had to tell her what it was supposed to represent.  [Artists, actors, and writers were not thought of too highly by my Dad as he considered those avenues of interest not likely to make you a living and you’d have to get a real job or starve.]

        Every year for the first six years of my schooling in that quaint elementary school that had the swings out front and the ball field off to the side, the same teacher came with her pussy willows and daffodils and my watercolor renditions got better and better.  And, every few years I heard my Dad’s cautionary statement and put a check on my artistic ambitions.   

        While my daffodils are in bloom, I feel the need to find me some fresh pussy willows and buy a child’s water color paint box.  I’ve got the brush and a suitable sketch pad . . . I wonder . . . .