In a Sea of Yellow Paper Roses



Happy swimmer

It is ten o’clock in the evening and I am a woman obsessed. I am in the thick of preparations for Sophie’s 7^th birthday, and she has decided to have a dainty tea party at home for a few select friends. Her favorite color is yellow, and I have come to the important decision to fill our humble little house with yellow paper roses. I envision a multitude of paper roses hanging from the ceiling, strewn on the floor, lining our staircase, huge yellow paper roses pinned to her guests’ clothing, fetchingly attached to their hair, placed by the foot of the table, on the couch: just a bounty, no, a truckload, nay, a veritable sea of roses to play around with. I have made fifty and I am tired but determined, amused but angry with myself. All she wanted was a simple tea party with nuggets, iced tea, and caramel cake and here I was, slaving away in my self-made paper rose factory. Fifty is enough, I try to convince myself. I shake my head. Of course it isn’t. I was on a mission and I was not going to stop until our entire house was stuffed to the brim with paper roses, so stuffed that little yellow roses flowed from out of the windows and through the door.

“Wow.” I hear her awed voice behind me as she beholds her yellow paper flower sea. She plops down beside me. “Can I help?” She asks.

I sigh and try to dissuade her. I had already nailed my process down to a T. Remove Japanese paper from plastic. Cut to appropriate size. Put together a few sheets and fold like an accordion. Fold accordion in half and attach floral wire. Twist. Open up accordion again. Toss into pile with others. Once critical mass is reached, approach the pile, open each accordion up one by one, and voila – a new batch of paper flowers is created. With each round my efficiency has increased. Left alone to my devices I would reach 100% efficiency and achieve my goal of drowning the entire house in paper roses in time for the party the following day, I just knew it.

“It’s my birthday, Mom,” she says. “And I want to help you. Please?” She pleads sweetly, insistently. I sigh again and yield.

I cringe as she cuts the Japanese paper unevenly. She tries to fold the stack of papers into an accordion, but the papers slide apart. I do my best to teach her. Finally, she reaches the final stage of opening up the paper accordion and forming a fully bloomed flower. She yanks at the Japanese paper too energetically, causing these to rip. I bite my lip and try to quell my irritation. I take her through the process once again, until finally she is able to make a few sad, wilted ones. We continue to work and she gets better at it, but we are not as fast. The performance of the paper rose factory declines as we pause production several times to look for the pair of scissors she misplaced, to re-fold her haphazard accordions, or to fix the floral wire that she had unwittingly tangled up. So much for the paper rose sea I had envisioned.

“They’re so pretty, Mom,” she says, then gets up and dives into them. I open my mouth to protest. She was ruining them, and we still had so much to do! She turns over and waves her hands and feet, as if she were making a snow angel. I start to laugh.

“Wheeeee,” she says merrily. “Come on, Mom, try it!” She cries.

Something shifts within me and I decide to join her. I lie down on the floor and smile into her bright, eager eyes. I start to wave my hands and legs energetically as waves of laughter wash over us.

We never make as many paper roses as I had originally intended. But in this moment, instead of thinking about my mad rose plans gone awry, I think about the incredible gift given me from the day she was born – the privilege of seeing her grow and bloom so beautifully over time. And in this moment with this little girl that I so loved, lying in a sea of our own creation, I know that I have more than enough.

 This is a memory from August 2012 :-)

Hanging out in her new tent after her 4th birthday party

 

Flower fairies on her 1st birthday