sjsprWriting

Ana Maria Blanco

“These are my favorite, I love them, thank you.”

Pink and red, thorns, ephemeral, leaves, water, and crystal vase: everything you could replace. They grow and they radiate beauty, an irreplaceable beauty that is hard to imagine in anything else. There they stand on a desk in all their glory; they act proud and jutting. Are they really my favorite?

Everything they represent is ephemeral because they are. Beauty, love, even their glorious aura is ephemeral; they only have lasting impressions in our memories. First dates, weddings, funerals, tombstones, lush gardens, they are found anywhere someone wants to be detailed, remembered, or remember someone else. They will eventually die, but the memories will seem alive and a part of us even after they decompose. After they start to die, people almost always throw them out; there is nothing left to admire anymore. People love them as long as they serve a purpose, as long as they’re still beautiful. Do I really love them?

From their stems spurs life but their beauty takes time just as growing and learning takes time. It takes time to learn that the same object can mean a million different things to a million different people. We buy them because other people like them, or because we’re sorry or because someone died. It’s often difficult to grasp their substance, how we define them.

On the desk there are books, letters, photos; but everything in the vase is composed and perfectly in its place. There are seven of them on a desk, in a vase, all equal, all a bit bulky, and all will be thrown out. Their petals fall off and when they do, they fall softly on the floor. They’re already dying; but we should keep them a little longer. Is this why we die and are we that easy to replace, too?

I guess that out of courtesy…these are my favorite, I love them, thank you.