On the day before our wedding, Michael and I picked bunches of wildflowers from a local meadow. We decorated our home with Black-eyed-Susans, Daisies, Goldenrod, Queen Ann's Lace, and Coreopsis for family and friends that came to celebrate with us.
The days before and the day of our wedding were deliriously colorful. Michael and I painted our shed with wildflowers and words and my best, dearest college friend Carlene was snapping pictures of our everyday love, swimming and running and wildflower picking. The morning of our wedding ( I could not sleep a wink at the inn), I drove back to our home to wake Michael before sunset and we watched it rise in all its pink orange beauty to welcome our day. We then went for one of our blessed early morning swims in Skaket. A few friends and family, other lovers of swimming, joined us.
Here it is necessary to include that we saved a shark. Coming out of the water, our friend Ethan noticed a black dorsal fin moving across the water. He is not a big fan of open water swimming, so this was particularly unsettling for him. Mind you, this was not a big fin, but it was a fin nonetheless swimming in circles, disoriented. With closer inspection, it was about three feet long, blackish on its back, grayish on its belly, with a pointed nose and large eyes. It was not a common sand shark or dog shark that we could tell but maybe a baby Mako shark. Whatever type of shark it was, it needed to get to larger open waters of the ocean side, so Michael walked alongside it guiding it in the direction of the open sea. It finally seemed to find a course and went on its way. It was an exciting story to add to the day.
After all the excitement, I had less than thirty minutes to get back to the inn, change, and return to the beach where friends and family would meet to witness our love and commitment to one another. I kept the salt in my hair, pulled it back, slipped on my glove-fitting Nicole Miller dress, took the simple handful of Russian Sage that Michael had put in the room, and made it just in time to see him dressed in his handsome linen rolled-up pants and shirt that hung as naturally as our love. People close to us were there and our friend and judge Steve married us among the sea, the sand, and grasses, under a cloudless, cerulean sky. It was perfect for us in every way.
We married on the morning of our first collaborative art and poetry exhibit opening at Cape Cod Art Museum, so the day continued to be a joyous and memorable one. We hosted a reception and got to share the collaboration of not only our love, but our art and poetry too.
We created a wildflower garden that represents those wonderful memories and more. When we first sowed the seeds in March, we thought none had taken because we watched robins and finches snack on them. So we planted more. Still we thought none had taken as what looked like a field of weeds were staring at us. Unsure of what green leaves were what, we picked only the certain weeds we knew. Now we do understand that "weeds are wildflowers looking for a home", and I admit I felt guilty picking any weeds, but the monster ones that looked like something from Little Shop of Horrors, well they had to go.
Almost three months later, we have a delightful, airy array of wildflowers in every color that bring joy each time we come home. Every day we see a new poppy pop. We have pink, yellow, and orange poppies, and larger red ones too. There are Coreopsis, and several varieties of Daisies in yellows and whites like Tidy Tips and the African Daisy. There are Crimson Clover, Bull Thistle, Baby Snapdragons, and Baby Blue Eyes with Sweet Alyssum sprinkled about and so many more I do not know the names of. I adore our wildflowers. They hug us with happiness. We talk to them, sing to them, and encourage their place in the world.
Oscar Wilde writes "With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?"
I will add art, love, and the sea to the list.
Dear carrot friends, what's on your list of happy things?
Wishing you all things happy!
~Bess
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