a vase, a start

Before the floors were finished, before the paint dried—I went to the florist.
Probably more out of habit than anything else. I brought some protea stems home, unwrapped them at the sink, and dropped them into a vase with a tight enough opening to hold them together on their own.

I had packed my floral string and arrangement tools somewhere—“somewhere” meaning one of 50 boxes in the basement I hadn’t looked at since the movers left. When people asked, I said I was still unpacking and tried not to think about it too much.
Unpacking is a state of being.

My furniture was still wrapped in plastic. My rugs were rolled up against the walls. The air smelled like the paint samples I was trying out. But I remember placing that first vase in front of a window and sitting down on a folding chair.
Exhaling, just a little longer.

The arrangement was spare.

But it was a way of saying: this is home now.

You think the moment clicks when you close on the house. Or when you get the keys.
The truth is, it happens when you’re sitting on a folding chair, procrastinating, not unpacking your life.

Every week since, I’ve made a point to make an arrangement.
Some weeks, it’s just a few stems in a vase.
But the motion is the reminder.

That things don’t need to be finished to be taken in.

Sometimes, we just need a place to begin.

A vase.
A start.

—L