Daffodil Day 💛
Not knowing this year is different from any other, the daffodils push their pretty heads through winter’s brown leaves. Spring arrives as usual and the sun still shines.
At our family’s house near Lake Perry, my grandma has planted hundreds, may be even thousands, of daffodils. Every year she adds more bulbs and they line the edge of the woods, wind down paths, and tuck into nature’s nooks and crannies. There are so many varieties of daffodils! She has planted not just the common type, they show up in every shade of yellow- some even with a touch of peach, and their frilly centers have different personalities.
What is different about this spring is that my active grandparents are in a strict quarantine at home. Since they are in their eighties, they began to isolate a few weeks before the 30 day stay at home order went into effect. They actually live less than a mile from us, but we have only seen them from a distance outdoors when dropping off supplies.
When stopping by to check on the lake house, the daffodils were at their peak and the yellow forsythia bushes in full bloom. Not wanting all of this beauty to go unseen, my family cut buckets full of daffodils and forsythia branches to bring back home. Since the news these days is so horrifying, we decided to invent a new holiday that we call Daffodil Day. We made bouquets of forsythia and daffodils tied with a ribbon and went around dropping them off on people’s porches to spread a little cheer.
Another part of Daffodil Day included photographing and painting the flowers. We dug out oil paints that hadn’t been used in ages and set up an art studio in our garage. I am inspired by how so many people are taking this unique gift of time to be creative. Examples of the world wide creativity taking place can be found under #isolationcreation. When I was on a Zoom chat checking in with my drill team from school, we each said something positive that was going on in our lives. Most of us were feeling a relief from all the school stress and a lot more rested. I found out that people were learning to play the piano, training for marathons, and reorganizing their rooms. I hope in the midst of this scary pandemic that you find a bit of happiness and discovery.
Happy Daffodil Day!
~ GPF