Privilege Blog

First Rose First Girl, Or, Saturday Morning at 8:36am

The first rose has bloomed in my garden.

Nothing special. A garden variety one might even say, red rose. Doesn’t even smell like much of anything except generic flower. Vegetal.

But she seems like someone I’d want for a friend. Someone audacious. The girl who goes to a party in a group, and as her friends buzz under the portico, fretting about it being too early and the terrible possibility that they have all Worn The Wrong Clothes, she presses on the doorbell with two fingers for emphasis, once, twice, “What the hell you idiots, I’m going in!”

And they have the time of their lives.

I love how she’s willing to tart herself up with Photoshop (for let us anthropomorphize even further and pretend that it was her petals themselves moving the color sliders across the screen) without bothering to strip out the clearly infested yellow leaves in the background.

Impunity. Bloom on my friend.

Have a wonderful weekend. Never mind the fungus.

20 Responses

  1. A rose is a rose is a rose – except when it’s the first rose of the season, and then it’s The Rose. And to be a true red rose as well! What more could one ask of the floral queendom?

  2. Hmm, I think I’m seeing some Georgia O’Keeffe in your rose. Guess you know where my kind goes….

  3. “She chose her colors with the greatest care. She dressed herself slowly. She adjusted her petals one by one. She did not wish to go out into the world all rumpled, like the field poppies. It was only in the full radiance of her beauty that she wished to appear. Oh, yes! She was a coquettish creature! And her mysterious adornment lasted for days and days. Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself.” Antoine de St. Exupéry, “The Little Prince”

  4. A long time ago I had a ring made from my mother and grandmother’s diamonds. The jeweler told me that when he was studying gemstones he wondered what kind of woman would be able to pull off rubies and exuberantly gave me the wonderful compliment that he thought my personality could carry them. It made me feel like that red rose and still does whenever I think of it. Thanks for sharing!

    1. @Pamela Browning,

      May I share my own sentimental ruby story? My husband inherited my engagement ring from his maternal grandmother, who left it to him specifically “to give to his bride.” It is a round setting, with a cushion-cut ruby set above an encirclement of diamonds, all set in gold. And so strikingly beautiful that perfect strangers comment on it.

      I always tell them the true story that it was first given to Grammy Eaton by her own husband, with reference to the Biblical verse, “A virtuous wife is more precious than rubies.” I wear it with such joy – and after 55 years of marriage, with such hopes that I have lived up to it!

      We ruby girls must stick together…

  5. I am sure this trailblazer will coax the wallflowers onto the dance floor. I like her spirit!

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