"Wildflower Ladies" by - The New Quarterly Digital Edition

It’s not 1969, baby girl. This isn’t Woodstock. We’re old ladies now, but we were young once, radiant but self-conscious, at the pinnacle of beauty. Halcyon days. Our other friends are here too: Janis, Bob, Joni, Eric, Jimi, the members of Jefferson Airplane. The air crackles with music and possibility.

Twelve of us stand in a circle at dusk, willing mischief, golden rays kissing the open faces of the blooms and we are here for a night of revelry at the wildflower farm. The perfume of milkweed and sweat pea is a welcome respite from dirty laundry.

What I feel in my bones is an ache for adventure. We’ve left our age, our responsibilities—our men, for those of us who have them—at home. The flowers are swaying to the bass thrum of loudspeakers rigged to a makeshift stage.

The full moon is rising.

There’s life in this old girl yet.

“Shots-shots, shots-shots-shots,” hollers Black-eyed Susan, feigning a hands-up dance, mimicking her Gen Z niece. Her mantra is that fun isn’t wasted on those with less time, which she demonstrates by leaning down, rummaging through her carry-all-bag-of-many-splendors. We get a peek at her ample bosom in a lacey bra as she retrieves massive jugs of clear, distilled liquor.

“Let’s drink to the moon shining,” she crows, toasting and taking a hearty swig of the stuff, passing to the left.

She’s likely stowed some weed away in a pocket and will pull out a doobie later. She might even have mushrooms.

I’m not here for that. I’m not even here, like the others, to find myself again or to lose myself for a moment. I’m here to press the bruise. To make it hurt.

I’m searching for you.

Meanwhile, Susan is a wildthing. She has no regrets, like she’s never wished she’d picked a different field to grow in. She wears a skirt of lambent yellow, has an eye that darts around to watch for drama when she’s not the one causing it; there’s a challenge in her rebellious display of leaves. Susan has a slim stem, large perky petals, long spindles with which she stirs the cauldron. Tell her what you said while she was on the crapper, you saucy minx! she says, when Juhi returns. We were only discussing the deliriously pretty beds of frangipani, peony, and phlox, in a gradient of shocking pinks.

Despite the alcohol making its rounds and the warmth in our bellies, a gnawing hunger in our hearts, the rest of us are still shy and awkward, bending, moving stiffly to the tunes as we wait for the cover of darkness. Eleven old crones, not yet transformed. And Susan.

We should have aged out of shame, yet it’s cloying.

But tonight, you can feel it. There’s magic in the air, a palpable excitement. Abandon winks at us from behind the tangerine line of horizon. With only a darkening landscape of florals peering back at us we stop judging ourselves.

We dance.

We’re wild.

Do I ever dance, my girl. We weave patterns in the grass with our bodies, fingers toying with the wind.

If my boys could see, they’d harken this flagrant display to my hippy days, a recapturing of my juvenescence in the sixties. Might think I’m going through a pagan phase, experimenting with Beltane-witch-rites like it’s my midlife-crisis-Corvette. I can’t say I’d blame them. We’ve stoked the fire, piled the wood so high that the sparks threaten to singe the Wiccan imagery on Ani’s tarot cards. I see the devil in the details. The women done grooving go to Ani one by one, hoping to garner some clarity or fortune. You don’t exist in my future, so I don’t seek Ani out. Instead, I close my eyes, wave rhythmically to “A Case of You.” You are resurrected in every lyric, taunting, an addiction, beckoning me back to the scene of the crime. Not yet, my sweet. You can confront me soon.

A tap on my shoulder. My best friend Juhi has red wine in one hand, a hula-hoop in the other, a remnant of a visit from her granddaughter. Juhi is Bengali for the Jasmine flowers that populate her home country, making life smell sweet even when it’s hard. Her fun is wholesome, her humour bleak. She wears a purple silk salwar kameez for this occasion. I press my lips, soon to be stained ruby, against the baby-down black hair at her temple. She can read my hidden grief like Ani reads cards.

I step, one leg, then the other, into the hoop. I twist and sweep in a clockwise direction, certain my creaky hips will protest. Wouldn’t you know, it’s like riding a hunk. My body swivels and the hoop hugs my thickened middle like it’s a sport invented for elder-aged maids.

Juhi whoops. Her smile stretches across her face like she’s found ecstasy and I’m sure there’s something I can’t place, some secret she’s hiding. The others cheer as I keep the movement going, an orbit never off course. I belly dance while I sip my wine, showing off.

Red solo cups of moonshine and merlot populate the circle like a ring of roses. Lips are lined. I abandon the hoop and shake like Janis, grooving until I’m gasping for breath.

The party has officially started.

I should tell you about Ani, baby girl.

Anemone is the patron of this wildflower farm. She bought it on a whim after a walk in Orillia. There was an old rickety sign on the side of the road. For sale, it said. Caked in dust like nobody had given it a second thought in years. Like us, she later told me. She turned down that little dirt path and there, a fairy in a field of produce beckoned her to destiny.

Some say Ani’s a witch. Each time I make the decision to believe, I feel closer to you.

The produce farm became a flower farm, and Ani, once an artist with paint became an artist with blooms. Untamed bouquets were all the rage and her business kept her husband and sons in comfort.

Ani told me the fairy looked like a little blonde girl with a white dress and wings. She was holding a bouquet of strawflowers. She pointed to illustrate just where you stood in the tall grass, among tomatoes, withered on the vine.

The first time she told me the story I turned away. The tears collected on my chin.

I hold the memory of you standing with strawflowers right there in that field, in my heart. You were barely four. It was late September. You’d convinced me to buy those wings for Halloween. I was pregnant with Arthur and was ill, but you’d been restless and we needed out of the house. It was the Ambroses’ farm then.

There’s no photo. I’ve never told. Ani plucked the scene from my consciousness like a psychic or someone who can see the dead.

To her, there you were, her fairy—my angel.

Why don’t you come to me? Is it because you blame me?

When I’m dripping sweat, I stop dancing. There’s a gray caste to Bell’s creased petals. I cross the circle, take her hand, pull her away. We lie down, my head on her tummy.

“I’m tired,” she says, but she doesn’t mean from cavorting. Bluebell has five kids and a husband with a beer belly and a bad attitude. She holds it all together without thanks.

“Rest,” I say. “Tonight’s for you.”

Bell is struggling, crestfallen, thirsty for light. She’s long past her breaking point.

Mother Nature responds by peering back from the void, rows of buds surrounding our hill, glowing fireflies lighting up the night like flashes of hope. We pollute her oceans, cut her trees, pump poison into her air, and yet she gives us seasons and sustenance, wildflowers and fireflies.

She is the eternal womb. Leached until she can give no more. She is a loving mother. Her children are thriving.

I cup the head of a crushed buttercup in my hands. I pass the pressed flower to Bell.

“It’s always me, me, me with you, you selfish cow.”

A surprised laugh escapes her lips.

“If a little bit of sarcasm does this, we really need to get you to a comedy club. Or buy you a vibrator. Or find you a man without whisky-dick.”

As my friend’s amusement sobers at my barb towards her husband, we watch the motley crew of ten dancing ladies twirl and spin. They appear to be performing a sacrifice. The bloodletting has happened in their day-to-day lives, their bodies wrung for sweat and tears.

I judge Bell for staying, even if I have no right.

I want more than one night for Bell. I’m made stupid by alcohol.

“Why do you stay?” I ask.

“It takes all my energy to get up, take care of them, keep going. It’s more effort than I can muster. Is that horrible?”

“No, I understand. I just want you to be happy.”

I know pain comes in all shades. I’ve felt grief. Depression. Sadness. Denial.

I want Bell to do more than survive. I want her to live, baby. But wanting doesn’t make it so.

The night has gotten wild. You should look away.

But nudity may not bother you where you are. Before, you were barely old enough to refuse to take baths with your brothers. In my mind, you are both child and woman. So peek; soon we’ll be twelve dames in the buff, howling at the moon.

Susan has taken off her top. Her bra.

Now her pants.

Her bush is on full display.

“Who cares!” she yells.

Easy to say when you’re sixty but look forty. She doesn’t believe in getting old. Her boyfriend, forty-seven, can’t keep up.

I look around the circle shyly.

Daisy removes her top. I don’t know her well, but everyone likes her. She’s a hairdresser from Barrie. Divorced, one daughter. Juhi says Daisy’s hilarious.

She’s athletic for a woman pushing fifty. Pointy pistils.

Juhi follows suit, removing her kameez tunic. She’s bold. I can’t remember my friend this brazen. Her hair, once streaked gray, is glossy black. Her eyes sparkle and her body is trimmer than it’s been in years. She’s smiling.

I watch fascinated by this woman I can’t fathom.

Juhi’s boobs hang lower than they once did, still exquisite. The dark may hide her stretchmarks, but they are the crayoned wall the kids drew on that no one bothered to paint over—line drawings too beautiful to erase. She has shed every ounce of self-consciousness.

She and Daisy are two laughing flowers, top heavy, tits up, leaning towards each other like they are reaching for sunlight.

It comes, one moment I do not know and the next I see.

Sharp-eyed Susan is watching me and approaches.

“They’re fucking,” she says, relieved to finally tell someone.

“No, they’re…”

“What they are is F—.”

“In love. That’s love.”

How could I not have seen? Did I choose not to see? Juhi has a husband of forty years. Three grown children. Grandchildren. But this is, in some ways, the happiest I’ve seen her. I don’t begrudge her this affair. I wish she’d told me. I feel like I failed her, too. But she’ll tell me when she’s ready.

Sometimes you fall in love by accident, Poppy. Cheating may not be what others consider moral or right, but it’s good to see Juhi’s joy. Life gets complicated. I’ll be here if things come crashing down. There could be consequences, but I won’t be the one to dole them out.

I’ve been faithful to your father, you know, but I’ve been tempted to follow the whims of lust, especially after losing you. There was another man with the bluest eyes, and I wanted to forget the past for a moment. But you can’t, can you? Run away from yourself? So your father and I, we healed together. And I love your dad, even when he’s an ass.

My turn. I take off my shirt. Wiggle out of my skirt. I am curves and cellulite. Dimples and large breasts. This is the body that gave me you. Your brothers. How can I resent it so?

You were going to be ravishing, Poppy, so the world would have tried to convince you that beauty is the barometer of value, but flowers weren’t put on earth to be pretty. Even after the bloom is long dead, the plant holds purpose and function. They provide remedies for ailments, dye cloth vivid colours, make food taste. Like plants, we are the seed carriers and sources of birth, holders of knowledge, and nurturing healers. There’s strength in gnarled roots. And in crinkled laugh lines. And silver hair that sparkles. Even with cataract-shrouded eyes, we have seen what it is to love and be loved.

I shiver in my nakedness taking it all in.

The hill is a mystical place. There’s smoke from the fire in the clearing. In the distance, fog glides off the lake, a glinting expanse of onyx shrouded in mist, waiting for us. We jiggle in the firelight. All wear different levels of undress.

“To the water,” Susan yells. “Skinny dipping!”

The farm is just off Lake Couchiching.

Some break away, run down the hill like children. They dive, splash, some dip just their toes and wiggle them.

I walk until the water claims me, guilt and all. The cold takes my feet, my thighs, my gut, my breasts. I float on my back.

The women play. The children played.

I looked away. We found you in this lake, drowned, floating, hair like a golden net around your babyface. I’m so sorry I wasn’t paying attention.

Water wings weren’t fairy wings, so you took them off. You wanted to be a mermaid.

I swim under the murky water in the dark and will myself to see a nightmare, your eyes milky in death. Darkness. The cold christens my pain. I stay long after the ladies leave, reminiscing in the silence, adding my tears to Lake Couchiching.

I breaststroke to the edge as the sky takes on an eery light. I walk naked up the hill, a refrain of failed motherhood the shadow I leave in my wake.

Ani runs sunrise yoga. The ladies lay on their matts, some sleeping instead of meditating, but others flow.

It’s peaceful.

I walk, look back at my friends, these vivacious wildflower ladies.

I am a dandelion. A weed. Hardy. I have gone through the worst. Here I am, alive. You died and I lived. I had to. For everyone else, I had to.

“Mom,” you call.

I see you, Poppy.

In a field of dandelions. A meadow of dreams.

“Make a wish,” you say, and you blow on the white fluff, just like I taught you.

Please forgive me?

You disperse on the wind with the umbrella seeds like you never were.

Photo by Geio Tischler on Unsplash.