Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Roses on my table and leaves on my desk

There are roses on my table today. I just received them and they fill the house with their heady scent, making me think of my grandfather’s garden when I was a child.

I was always wandering in that garden when I should have been with the other grandchildren, playing. Instead, I’d trail after my grandfather, watching him puff on his pipe and check his hedges, tending his flowers every once in while. I watched him for the slightest scrap of a story that would tumble out of his lips between pinches of tobacco. I was always there to catch it.

Some Sundays were better than others. Especially if there were blooms.

‘That’s a tulip’ he told me one morning. ‘It’s where the fairies wake up.’ My eyes must have been as big as saucers. He just smiled and sat on the porch slowly, as if he were too old to keep walking and would just sit for a minute in the sunshine. I nearly danced, but he just took out the pouch from his pocket and sniffed the tobacco, pretending not to notice me. He tapped out the charred remains of his previous smoke, and meticulously filled the bowl for a fresh experience.

I sat down on the steps, recognizing the signs. My grandfather never told a story on anyone else’s schedule, keeping to his own rhythms and reasons. If he felt like parceling it out over months, he could and often would. It was always up to me to piece it together. Out of all the grandkids, I seemed particularly adept and willing for this, so we often spent time together on the days of family gatherings. This particular Sunday, he seemed in a relatively talkative mood, at least for him and I was to get the whole story and it’s meaning, all in one sitting.

He took a couple of puffs to light his pipe, savored the inhalations for a moment, and then pointed the stem at me.

‘The fairies, they like the shape, see’ and my grandfather cupped his spotted hand, leaning forward and holding it in front of my nose like it held a fairy right then. ‘They start as babies inside and when the tulip opens, they fly out for the first time. The tulip stays the same shape as the fairy’. He leaned back and took a couple of puffs from his pipe, closing his eyes against the sunshine. I thought that was that. I rose, intending to look inside each and every one of his tulips to see if the fairy had left behind a hat or blanket or some other proof of their existence that I could show to my cousins. My grandfather’s voice trailed after me, lightly, as if he’d only just spoken his thought aloud.

‘Fairies are the ones that whisper stories to little girls, if they’re quite and listen.’

I was hooked. My grandfather told me of other flowers. He told me about how to grow them (most of which I’ve sadly forgotten), how to care for them, their names and he always included a short story that sparked my imagination. African violets had a safari, gladiolus were the flower he gave my grandmother when he was courting her, lilacs were something he brought my mother when she was hospitalized shortly before the birth of my brother. Every plant had a story attached with it.

Then, one day, he handed me a pair of what I called snippers, and motioned towards his sacred roses.

‘Go pick one,’ he said, turning his back so he couldn’t watch me. My grandfather was particularly protective of his rose bushes, tending them with extra care and always alone. I had, until this point, been forbidden to go near them and I was many years past believing in fairies in tulips. I took the snippers and wandered near the bushes, examining this bud and that blossom. They all looked so breathtaking up close. They were wonderfully textured and smelled sweet. The leaves looked so glossy, so sophisticated and even the thorns weren’t that scary this close. I went back to my grandfather and handed him the snippers, leaving my hands bare.

‘I can’t choose one. I’d rather they stayed on the bush and I could enjoy them all.’

My grandfather looked at me oddly and nodded. The next day, he summoned me over after school. Summons were rare and always to be answered. My father brought me over immediately himself. My grandfather met us on the walkway, a bundle in his hand.

‘This is your rose bush’ he said of the bundle and brought me over to a freshly prepared place in his garden. He supervised my planting of my very own roses. Then he turned me to face him and said seriously ‘You’ll have to tell me its story when it gets big enough’.

‘I will,’ I promised solemnly. I did. This simple exchange started a tradition between him and me. Each Christmas I would give him a plant or seedling to be nursed until spring, and each birthday he would walk me over to the roses and send me out to cut some from the bush we planted. And he’d tell me a story, and I would listen. When I started to share my own stories, my grandfather was always the one who listened to them, puffing on his pipe.

Now, a grown woman, there are roses on my table and leaves of paper on my desk. I write down my stories, rather than just telling them. I miss our exchanges, sometimes, but I’ll always have them tucked away. The smell of the roses hits me while I write this, strong, sensual and I could almost swear I hear the fairies and the stories they whisper. Time to write again. I hope you didn’t mind sharing my walk down memory lane, but this is the season for special things and I wanted to share this with all of you, rather than post an introduction on how I write and the like. My release with Samhain isn’t until April 15th so I’ll have plenty of time for that later, I hope. For now, I wish you a merry celebration and much joy for the coming new year.

Happy Holidays from Taryn Blackthorne.
Have a favourite memory you want to share?Visit me at “link“http://tarynblackthorne.com