Personal essays
Reflections on roses
Murder on the …
I booked a bus trip to the abbey at Montserrat from Barcelona.
It was like those Hercule Poirot stories where he’s on a train with others, or in Egypt, or on some other tour.
Each one of my traveling companions could end up as the body and each could be the murderer. They certainly could all have been suspects at one time or another during the story until they too were found disposed of.
I suppose I suppressed my murderous thoughts by assuming I was playing the role of the detective.
There was the elderly British couple whose accents seemed to slip now and then.
There was the pair of female veterinarians who were in town for a conference. When the newly weds who had just arrived asked them what their favorite part of Barcelona was, they said, “the drinking.”
Maybe they hadn’t been there as long as they said. Maybe they weren’t really veterinarians. A vet conference in Barcelona that they flew from America to attend. Wearing those dresses? I don’t think so.
There were the young women who had just graduated who said they’d been traveling for weeks and weeks and the young male who was trying to keep up with them.
On the train ride up mountain the final mile or so to the abbey, he ignored the smarter of the two and paid all of his attention to the cuter, fitter one. It took everything in me not to say, “bad choice my friend.”
But he was there to gather his rosebuds while he may and he was making a bet that one set of rosebuds would be easier to gather than the other.
Free time
We got off the train and our guide told us some history of the abbey and walked us around to the church.
Before leaving us to go inside, he pointed out things we could do on our own in the next hour or so.
One was a walk up a steep path to that cross there on top of the mountain. He cautioned that it would take us 25 minutes or so up and 20 minutes or more back down so we should get going if that’s what we wanted to do.
I looked around the church, lit candles for Kim and Elena, and headed up the path to the cross.
There will come a time when I can’t make that walk and can’t enjoy the view. I need to make that choice while that choice is mine to make.
It’s not the way I read the poem.
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may Old time is stil a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.”
First, I misremembered the last line. I remembered it as “may” not “will”. This flower that looks so good today will be dying tomorrow.
Second, we’re the gatherers. The poem doesn’t talk of us dying - it talks of the roses we look at dying.
Had I not climbed that hill when I did, that same hill would be there tomorrow - it is I, the gatherer, who might no longer have been able to climb it.
That’s why the poem is compared to a call to seize the day. I’m just not sure we have it the right way around.
Perhaps the clue comes in the title of the Robert Herrick poem. I have to confess that I hadn’t remembered that it is the first stanza of “To the virgins, to Make Much of Time”
A balance
I’m lucky to have visited Paris many times.
I described my visits as being like someone who likes to return to the Disney theme parks each year.
I try to see things that are new - or at least new to me - but there are some of my favorite rides and attractions that I visit as often as I can.
This time included a first visit to the cemetery that is the home of Oscar Wilde, Moliere, Chopin, and Gertrude Stein.
My first few nights in Paris, I stayed at a hotel that wasn’t far from the cemetery. Saturday I woke up, packed, and prepared to move to a hotel in the Latin Quarter.
Before I left, I decided to walk the fifteen minutes to the cemetery and spend time inside visiting various graves.
I decided to gather my rosebuds while I may.
It then I discovered that Gertrude Stein’s most famous quote is like the kid who can spell banana, but just doesn’t know when to stop repeating the “n-a” part.
Her famous quote begins “A rose is a rose” and repeats the “is a rose” part twice more. That’s once more than I thought she did.
Decisions
For me a rose is not always a rose.
Or more precisely, what you and I see as roses may differ.
Some roses are dying and won’t come back. Cities are sinking, climate is changing, some of the opportunities we have today won’t be around tomorrow.
Some roses are right in front of us. We need to stop and smell them.
That may be enough. Notice them. Appreciate them. If we gather them, perhaps others can’t appreciate them.
As for the metaphorical kinds - the walks, the new experiences, re-riding our favorite rides - those are the rosebuds I’ll continue to gather while I may.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 183. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe