kitchen windowsill daffodils

Tonight, I changed the sheets on my bed. It’s a task that we all do (some less frequently than others), and more often than changing our sheets altogether we usually make our bed. Again, some less frequently than others. 

Something must have been in the air today because as I was pulling the fitted sheet across the bed, and then adjusting the flat sheet until it evenly hung off of the bed, I felt the urge to grab my journal. I finished tucking the flat sheet under the end of the bed and I grabbed my journal from my desk drawer and a pen. 

When I was making my bed, I realized that I always make it with hospital corners. And not just that. I realized I make my bed with hospital corners because that was the way my grandfather made his. When I was a kid and I would be at my grandparent's house, the dryer cycle would finish and we would take the clean sheets and blankets into their bedroom. I would stand on my grandmother’s side of the bed and he on his. I would mimic his form as he pulled the fitted sheet down over corners. We would do opposites first, and it would become an unspoken race to see who would have to pull the sheet over the last corner of the mattress. I would rush to finish before he did so that I didn’t have to struggle with the last corner. 

I’ve been feeling reflective as of late. I think this time of year does that to me. 

There’s a poster on the wall of the cinderblock wall of my dorm room. It’s of narcissus flowers—daffodils. I bought it at a little shop stall on the side of the Seine, I think somewhere in the 5th. I bought it because it’s one of my favorite flowers, but mainly because of the memories that I associate with it. Up at my great-grandparents’ house, just up the lane I live in, I used to pick daffodils in the spring. I carefully stepped through the woods behind their house and around decades-old fence posts and the barbed wire that used to keep their farm animals in. Leaning down with a pair of scissors and a mason jar, attempting to cut the stems to equal lengths, or simply plucking them with my hands. I would march down to our house and put the flowers in water. Because I eyed the length of the flowers as I picked them, sometimes I wouldn’t cut them quite the same length and would give the too-short flowers to my mom. 

With the too-short flowers, my mom would put them in a little glass and place them on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. I think that’s something she picked up from her mother.

In the spring, the fence around my grandparents’ yard would begin to line with daffodils. One side grew more flowers than the other, and I remember gravitating toward that fence because of its abundance of green leaves and yellow and white flowers. I took as many as I could without taking them all. I searched for perfect petals and long, straight stems—leaving the ones wilted by the sun and bent by squirrels. I left enough to be pretty from afar, but still selfishly took all of the good flowers. 

I would take the small bouquets inside to my grandmother, who would then fill a North Oldham Little League cup with water and the flowers. Then they would sit on the windowsill about the kitchen sink until their beauty wilted away. 

As spring begins to approach—or at least as I hope it does—I think about those yellow-petaled flowers. How they come back every spring, always returning to the same place they grew the year before. I think there’s beauty in that, like every time they’re taken to a different place, another pops up in its place. 

I can't say why these thoughts on daffodils hit me tonight, or why I realized that my grandfather is to thank for the tight corners of my sheets (whenever I actually make my bed). On a certain level, I'd say the rain we've been getting recently has washed thoughts of the present away, and the flood that sometimes accompanies rain has drudged up thoughts of the past. Habits, happenings, half-memories. I feel as though there is a reason for this. It might not be the coincidence of the washing weather, or the sight of my daffodil poster. It might lie entirely in the details of the past, or in the petals of the flowers unfurling at the first lapse of spring sunlight.

I cannot explain why these things have popped into my head, or why I felt the need to write them down. I think it might be because I'm realizing how much of ourselves is from people in our lives—past and present. It may be the way you make your bed, or the drink you get from Starbucks. It may even be something as mindless as the way you fold your t-shirts.

I find that most parts of my life are taken from the people around me. While I'm a little blank on which parts of my life those are, I know that they're there. It's like that one quote about being the sum of all the people we've ever met—we might not notice the factors but they're there, good and bad.

I think it's something we can all grow more aware of. Do you take your coffee the same way as your coffee-addicted grandmother, or do you spread butter on your bread as well as the jam because your friend does?

I'm not sure what all I've taken from others, or what they've taken from me. But it makes the world feel a little more cohesive and connected, doesn't it?

Thank you, as always, for reading. Until next time, friends.

(Cover photo taken from Pinterest!)