giving in to beauty
a flower bouquet for my granny
The sun rises earlier and earlier. The magnolias look like bursting confetti across the city (I gasp every time). The smell of spring rain and earth floats is in the air. The clarity the eclipse brought intensifies.
And all I want to focus on is how beautiful this time of year is.
This week started with one of my new favorite holidays — Granny Caroline’s birthday. Taj’s Granny and I reached a new level of closeness while Taj was in the hospital at the beginning of this year. We either spoke or saw each other every single day for the entire month that Taj was inpatient.
Sometime’s she’d bring us food after she got off of work. Sometimes we’d play a game or watch a movie but more often we just sat and talked. I’d run down to the cafeteria around 2:30pm every day to grab her an afternoon coffee — 3 creams and 7 sugars. She joked that I’d be able to make her coffee better than her by the time Taj was discharged.
The week of Valentines Day she brought me flowers. She met my mom. We bonded over our love of plants. She brought us a new one telling us we’d be taking care of it at home soon (we are). I learned that she used to sell floral arrangements. We slowly got to know more about each other’s lives. And by the end of the month she was calling me her granddaughter.
A sentence that always choked me up because I officially became grandparent-less just over a year ago when my Grandma Knapp took her last breath shortly after the new year. Being Granny Caroline’s granddaughter is a gift and a privilege and I wanted to show her how much I love and appreciate her by taking my first stab at a floral arrangement to gift her for her birthday.
Thanks to
who gifted me Alison Faulkner & Mal Strunk’s Flower Power Magic course when Taj and I returned home…I had some confidence to dive in head first!A trip to Trader Joe’s and I was excited (and nervous!) to watch my careful selections make their way into a finished arrangement. No pressure or anything…having your first arrangement be for someone who has made many of them in their lifetime!
I’m so lucky and my life is so beautiful. My hands smell like flowers, it’s raining outside and I hear Taj strumming on the guitar back in our bedroom. Hearing the acoustic guitar from a couple of rooms away is maybe one of my top ten favorite sounds.
My forehead starts to tingle, a wave a peace crashes over me. And anything I’m doing feels poetic. But in this moment, to be writing to the soundtrack of my partner playing guitar in the next room is poetic.
You know what else is a poem — the real raw truth that this time just three months ago I had moments when I came home to shower from the hospital, looked around, and for only a second let myself feel the big “what if she never comes home” question before running back to the hospital.
Sometimes I roll over in the morning and run into her body with surprise and delight. Sometimes I have a quick silent cry in the shower about how she is just on the other side of the door. And when I’m out walking in the neighborhood it feels — beyond anything I can put into words — to know that she’ll be home when I get there.
— substack newsletter notes, April 17th
Granny Caroline loved the arrangement and all felt right in the world! She introduced me to all of her family with pride and we shared a dance at the end of the night. She squeezed me and told me “you mean everything to me” over and over again.
I have been beaming looking back at photos from her celebration and the floral arrangement. Taj took silly little videos of me making my first arrangement. When I watch them back I see pure joy in my eyes. I had so much fun on my first attempt I ended up doing a little dying bouquet challenge and turned a discounted bouquet into something beautiful.
So take this little tale of love and beauty and following an interest as an invitation to dive into whatever is calling your heart. Feast your eye on color and living things that have their own frequency. Make the thing that has been on your mind. Speak the love letter that has been on your heart.
Let people become family. Love people like they will become family.
And give into the beauty around you.
It only amplifies with your attention.
With Love,
Jenna
The student who said “this was the part of the field trip I was most excited for” during my seeds of intention and labyrinth planting exercise at Lynden this past Wednesday 🥺
Sitting down at Taj’s keyboard and attempting (for the first time ever) to create my own backtrack for the hypnosis album I’m releasing on the Full Pink Moon (next Tuesday the 23rd!!) ~ it’s definitely not the NimbusWavs tracks I’ve been using for the past few years…but…it’s sooo intentionally created
Remembering spaghetti squash exists and how freaking incredible it is hot and crispy with melted butter and nutritional yeast
This Earth Frequencies video on YouTube
The knowing that I get to dive into 31 new Taylor Swift songs today, KNOWING that I will cry, her music always makes me cry on the first listen 😭
The beautiful opportunity
and I have to gather with folks and write tree poems during tomorrow’s Actively Missing You Workshop (registration is still open if you wanna jump in!!)
Next weekend is the 10 year anniversary of Dontre Hamilton’s death at Red Arrow Park. The Hamilton family has put together an incredible weekend in honor of Dontre! Join in and help celebrate his life by coming to the screening of The Blood Is At The Doorstep on Friday night (April 26), stop by Red Arrow Park between 12pm-6pm on Saturday (April 27th) and attend the Family Dinner on Sunday (April 28th).
April’s Monthly Forecast Circle will also happen next weekend for fellow DSWL 2024 Planner users! This month we’ll gather on Sunday April 28th from 10-11:30am! Registration is open here.
It’s not live on the web yet but we have confirmed another season of sound baths and sunset labyrinth walks at Lynden Sculpture Garden (running May-October!) and I would adore to see some of your shining sparkling faces in person there.
Oh my goodness! I love this post Jenna, so grateful that the flower course served you and the ones you love! Big hugs❤️ xo Carla