I love my roses.

I love roses in general, but mine... well, I'm very proud of them, cluttering up my kitchen, tracking their dirt around (okay, that might be the cats traipsing through their pots) and growing like (forgive me, but I must) weeds.

My entire wedding centered around roses. They are certainly the most recognizable flower going, I don't know of anyone who doesn't like them.
And in particular, I love that while they certainly have great beauty in their blooms, they also have great meaning, and great strength. Each color rose take a difference meaning. Red, of course, is love. Yellow, very often, friendship. Pink, romance... and there are many others. Nature's messenger.

In my kitchen I have 4 huge pots - 16" across. Just two months ago those pots had only twigs sticking out of dirt. Now, they are over-grown with fresh green shrubs... and potential. They look like bonafide plants now, and if we ever get our spring, they'll be allowed out for a fieldtrip to play in the front. Each of the four has at least one bud on itself, and I check every morning for just a glimpse of color under those bud covers. Soon. Queen Elizabeth (she's pink), Abraham Lincoln (he'll be a deep red) Irish Gold (obviously a yellow bloom on the way) and Peace (the most popular color of rose, peace is yellow with pink tips) will bless me with their blooms all summer, I hope. It's such a joy to remember those bare sticks, look at these fulling, lush shrubs, and dream about the potential of their future blooms. The circle of life, right there in my kitchen.

I long for a garden filled with roses - every color of rose imaginable. I'm a bit of a purist, I suppose, and greatly prefer the fragrent Hybrid Tea Roses (the breed we see in flower shops) so I should limit my garden to them... oh, but all the colors! Climbing teas, weaving their way up my house. Shrubs bordering the lawn, and a deep wild garden of them, making a lovely hutch for rabbits. And I'd love to start my garden now, but as I don't want to stay in this house forever, I simply can't abandon my family just because they're rooted to the earth, can I?

I've never really been the sort who minded the thorns of a rose. I remember being told they had thorns because otherwise they'd be too beautiful for us to stand. That may be true. I think instead that like many who are looked upon as fragile, a rose is simply a sign of hidden strength.

I'd like to think I'm not unlike them myself.


Thoughts for the Day:

Tom Wilson - “You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.”

Unknown - “A rose only becomes beautiful and blesses others when it opens up and blooms. Its greatest tragedy is to stay in a tight-closed bud, never fulfilling its potential.”

Unknown - “A life with love must have some thorns, but a life with no love will have no roses.”