On Flowers

Or Maybe Something Else

This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter about the late blooming queer experience and the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.

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Ever since I was a kid, I was always told that I apologize too much. “Stop saying sorry” is a phrase I’ve heard thousands of times over. I would apologize for a piece of farm machinery not working when my Dad would get mad at it. I would apologize if someone was upset, even if it had nothing to do with me. Sometimes, I’d flat out apologize for my own existence…

…I didn’t believe I was worthy of taking up space. I didn’t believe I was allowed to take up space. Growing up gay set this further into motion; when I learned that being gay wasn’t what was wanted by society, I felt broken, and thus I needed to apologize to everyone around me to make up for my flawed existence.

Kevin Martin, MS, CHC, CPT

I’ve spent $150 on flowers recently.

Actually, it was probably closer to $200 if you count the peony crown, two poppies and four Spanish lavenders I picked up last weekend.

Suffice to say I spent a lot of money on flowers.

This is not a brag; if anything, it’s damning evidence of my irresponsibility and impulsiveness.

I don’t really have the money to spend on extra things right now, even if it weren’t for the needlessly volatile market, disrupted supply chains and incredibly inflated prices of everything because of a dimwitted egomaniac and greedy c-suite suits.

And if I had the money, there are a lot of other things I should be spending it on, like finally installing the security camera above our garage so we can keep an eye on the numerous folk traveling the alley behind our house or finally build those built in bookshelves we’ve been wanting or replacing the toilet that I’m convinced works fine but everyone else in my house is convinced otherwise.

Sure, I bought perennials, things that will come up year after year, assuming they aren’t killed by any number of perils. I even considered that I live in a place that is already naturally dry–in its third straight year of drought, actually–and so bought things that can stand to go a little dry.

Yet, I am notorious about forgetting to water things. And I have two kids who tend to be careless and pick whatever flowers they fancy. And I have a young pup that has discovered the joy of digging wherever there is dirt and already nearly dug up one of the aforementioned Spanish lavenders.

I also clearly did not think through and plan for what I was going to plant, haphazardly shifting the river rock* to get to the soil in the beds, planting an echinacea or anemone or creeping phlox before just as haphazardly packing it all in around the poor plant in question. I did put some fresh garden soil in the hole and around the plant to give it some extra nutrients to stretch its roots out for but otherwise its abode is less than ideal.

This is just a phase, a tear, a voice says. You always do this, just get hooked by something and barrel into it without any thought.

I put three strawberry plants in a large pot. My wife is not convinced we’ll get to taste any of the berries–squirrels stole them when we last planted them in the little raised bed I put together for the kids at our last house.

It’s just like with your foray into film photography, the voice continues, where you haven’t even developed a roll of film in a year nor even come close to using that enlarger you picked up three years ago.

For the kids I bought petunias (creeping and standard) and geraniums for them to put in the hanging baskets for the front porch and then also a geranium each plus a Cosmos and two varieties of African daisies for them to plant in the one smaller raised bed I managed to clear of most of the rocks. As much as they enjoy planting them, I know they won’t tend to them. That’ll be up to me.

You always buy things to make yourself feel better, start hobbies to distract you from the messes in your life. Look at all the embroidery stuff you haven’t touched in how long? The beads and wire and findings for jewelry making? Your Prixel press and all the different inkpads you bought to use with it, when you manage to drag it out every six months or so.

I notice that the stub of a shrub that I’ve never taken care of since we moved to the house more than two years ago has tiny leaf buds near its base. I don’t remember it ever putting out leaves much less blossoms. I water it along with the new arrivals.

The world is falling apart and you’re wasting money on flowers. You could have donated that money to a charity or used it to save up for a family vacation this summer or in the future or just given yourself that much more money in the bank.

Last spring I saw a native common yarrow growing in my backyard, next to the climbing dome I assembled for my kids in lockdown during the pandemic. I mowed it over at the time, didn’t give it a second thought. This past weekend I saw it was back, its fern-like leaves setting it apart from the invasive grasses and dandelions and clover. I wonder if I can transplant it, put it somewhere it can actually grow and bloom…

You need to be focused on more important things. Your job, your marriage, your kids. Planting flowers does nothing, absolutely nothing, to improve the state of the world.

Maybe planting flowers is frivolous. Maybe writing about flowers is frivolous. Maybe nurturing neglected flowers is frivolous.

This isn’t really about flowers.

It’s fucking radical as hell to live so authentically to oneself that you don’t give a shit about what other people think. It’s fucking beautiful to celebrate who you are in such a way that makes people uncomfortable because they’re too afraid to live boldly in their own existence.

Kevin Martin, MS, CHC, CPT