wandering home after a night in budapest I found my lovely old neighbor wrangling her shrubbery. beautiful yellow flowers blanketed the dusty yard as she struggled to hold tree branches down whilst attacking them with pruning shears.
a little slow on the uptake, while wondering if I should dump my ginger ale and overnight bag before or after offering assistance, the aforementioned branch swings up as she bends down to gather trimmings and smilingly present them to me. I mime ‘really, for me’ in my polite / making sure said object is actually a gift way. she giggles and rushes into her house, returning moments later with a small pottery vase filled with blossoming sunshine. in case I didn’t entirely get the message, she returned to the house to drag out another example.
I use the opportunity presented by replacing half a dozen vases to put down my stuff, leaving my door open to avoid “I’ve accepted a gift then walked away without ado” miscommunication. hands free, I rejoin her under the tree and mime my intended offer. “jo, jo, jo!” I’ve no idea what aesthetic model she had in her mind but it was certainly vivid; she sheared twenty years off her appearance by the swift movement of her determined shears. job done we collected the remnants, which she ran off to present to another neighbor, a less mobile lovely old lady who’d been watching us quietly from a chair just inside her door.
chores done, my lovely star lady proceeded to walk me around the courtyard pointing out every single flowering blossom, no matter tiny or obscure. we got into a discussion of bulbs, and she brought out another example from what I can only imagine is a house entirely covered in flowers, this time to snag some of my nicely loamy store-bought soil with the world’s daintiest white plastic spoon. I showed her my own bulbs, still in their packaging, and she left after making me promise I’d plant them today. a smidge of dirt remains under my fingernails as I type even now.
I can’t honestly say which pleased me more – the childlike joy in sharing spring, or the well of hope produced by watching a 90 year old woman skipping.