I am the flower thief

Don’t take something that you can’t give back two times over.

That’s what my mother used to say.

Sitting beneath her pear tree in the garden, light bouncing off the high points of her face, hair thinning, and eyes tired.

The tree is still there in the yard, blooming and bearing fruit when it pleases. The new owners stripped the rest of the decadent garden, but for some reason kept the pear tree.

Maybe they could feel the ghost of my mother sitting beneath the shroud of its green leaves. Or maybe it’s just pretty to look at through the kitchen window.

Either way, the tree remains standing and the memory of its white blossoms and green fruit comes to me in dreams, like a cool soothing balm.

Spring has just begun, and gardens all across the city have begun to tentatively bloom. The air is sweet, and the sun feels warm on my cold feet and hands.

Its finally spring, and I have a problem.

I steal flowers.

It started small; drooping flowers with fallen petals, branches laden with blooms, laying on the ground. I walk a lot in the evening when the air has cooled, and when few people are out.

I break off small branches, pick up the tiniest fallen flowers, and I take them home.

I steal them because I can’t grow them myself.

I have no ground, no earth, to call my own. My apartment is small, and although my houseplants grow well, it’s not the same as planting something in the earth and watching it bloom.

My mother planted the pear tree when I was born, and put my umbilical cord beneath it.

It grew with me, and my mother and I watered it every day. And so eventually, the tree gave back to us, with fruit and flowers.

I always wished I could give more back; more to that splendid tree, and more to my mother.

I sneak home like the thief I am, hiding the flowers under my coat, walking swiftly in the dark evening.

I put the flowers that I steal in vases, and my whole apartment smells sweet and fresh. It gives me a feeling of beautiful contentment for a few days, like a marvellous gentle high, but then the flowers droop and die.

The water in the vases goes stagnant, the petals drop to the floor, and the leaves go brown and soft.

I always find myself incensed when they die. Angry that they couldn’t last longer.

Some flowers I have been able to dry of course, and those ones hang from my ceiling, and sit pressed between pages of books. I like them when they’re dry, but there is something about those fresh colourful blooms that I will always love more.

So, the cycle continues. I steal the flowers, dry them, put them in vases.

Watch them wither away with time.

It’s a few weeks into spring now, and I have only gotten worse.

Every surface of my home has at least one vase, filled to the brim, and I have begun to steal from front yards and verges. I have started to not only pluck the blooms, but sometimes the whole plant. Sprouting daffodil bulbs, squished underneath imposing hedges, freesias and cosmos in strange places, unlikely to be missed. I have bought pots and cardboard boxes, and filled them with soil to accommodate my new obsessions. They sit on my living room floor, and on my window sills. On my chest of draws, and in my bathroom.

Nearly all of the bulbs and plants that I have stolen have stayed alive, happy in their new accommodations. I have even started taking cuttings from succulents and geraniums, from daises and lavenders. I tend my makeshift garden obsessively, watching for the slightest hint of under watering, or too much sun. The plants thank me for it, and they thrive in their unusual habitat.

Its mid spring now, and nearly all of the walking space and much of the wall space in my apartment is occupied with my tiny garden beds. I am beyond happy with them. Every day it feels like I wake up in the garden of Eden, surrounded by such beauty. Gorgeous orange nasturtium and green sweet peas climb across my walls, and all manner of beautiful spring flowering plants grow from my floor. The lavenders are all flowering in fragrant purple blooms, the cosmos’ happy little faces shine yellow, pink and orange, and the daffodils stand proudly in yellow clusters all around my apartment.

I have tried to stop stealing- surely I must have what I need by now, but it is not enough. My mind is more bitter than ever, despite my little paradise.

As I steal from my neighbours’ verges and front gardens, I drown myself in ugly thoughts.

Who are you to think that you own this? To think that you own this plant, this piece of earth?

Do you deserve the beauty that you are surrounded with?

Do I?

I retreat home to my paradise, more stolen flowers and plants in tow, none of them filling up the void in my chest.

It’s the end of spring.

My flowers have wilted and dropped to the ground, as the perennials prepare for a hot summer.

I have been carefully trimming back the spring flowering plants, collecting bulbs and seeds for next year, reminding myself that they will bloom again. I haven’t stolen anymore flowers. There are summer blooming plants, yes, but they’re just not the same as those precious spring flowers. I don’t yet feel content, but knowing that the seeds and bulbs that I have collected will grow again next year keeps me at peace for the time being.

Summer carries on, and I am having strange dreams every night. Dreams about a small pear tree growing out of one of my planter boxes on my living room floor. I dream that it grows and grows until it breaks my ceiling, reaching up towards the sky. I dream that it turns into a tree as magnificent as my mother’s pear tree. I duck under the tree’s impressive bough, brushing its fine green branches to the side, and see my mother sitting beneath it, right there on the living room floor. I have had this dream almost every night of the summer, perhaps from overheating in the warm night air.

One night though, it became more than a dream.

I woke up in the middle of the night, sweat on my brow and my thin curtains blowing gently in the warm breeze. I stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen, and gulped down a huge glass of water.

I felt hot and sticky, so I went to the living room and sat on the hardwood floor. The moonlight beamed in through the windows, and I sat and breathed heavily for several minutes. In, and out.

When I opened my eyes again, sitting before me in the room was one of my planter boxes. And inside it, a little sapling was growing.

The moonlight bounced off its tiny green leaves, and its little branches quivered in the summer breeze. I reached out and stroked the tree, in sheer disbelief. It was a pear tree, just like in my dream. I sat back onto the floor, feeling hot tears pool in my eyes. Next spring, I was going to make it all right again.

It’s almost spring again; just one more day to go.

I spent the whole year eagerly awaiting the return of springtime, and it’s so close now that I can taste it. I have been waiting the whole year to enact my plan, and when I think about it, it’s the first time that I have looked forward to something in a long, long time.

It will happen soon. Tomorrow morning, I think.

I left my apartment early that morning, before the sun had come up yet. I carried with me bags of my plants and bulbs from last year that I have been growing in preparation for the spring.

And of course, I have brought the pear sapling with me too. It’s grown well over the year, and is now about twice the size as it was the first night that I discovered it.

The birds sing above me, welcoming the new season, and I begin to plant my bulbs and perennials. In verges, nature strips, front gardens. Everywhere.

I plant my beautiful flowers everywhere that I stole them from last year.

I go for at least the length of three whole streets, until my supply of seedlings and bulb plants runs out. I water each one of the little plants, and they perk up wonderfully, their stems standing tall and healthy.

The sun is up now, and people have begun to wake up and leave their homes.

They step out into their yards, and stop for a moment. Confusion passes over their faces, and then wonder. They rush inside and drag their wives, fathers, and children, still bleary from sleep, out to see the garden. To see the beautiful lobelias, daffodils, and daises that have appeared in their gardens overnight. They smile and laugh together, it must just be spring they say to each other, shrugging their shoulders. Their joy fills me with a quiet and peaceful contentment, and it feels like letting out a deep breath after years of holding it in.

The view down the streets that I planted in is stunning; like the most beautiful planned garden. Purples, blues, pinks, yellows. All the colours of spring are on show, and people walk down the street on their way to work or school with an airy and happy demeanour, looking around in wonder.

But I haven’t finished yet; there is one plant still to go.

I crouch down at a large verge in a cul de sac. There are a few small plants in it, but it needs a centrepiece; it needs a tree.

I depot the pear sapling, dig a deep hole for it to sit in, and then push the soil back around the its base.

My hands linger on the soil, and I feel a slight hesitation. The sapling’s tiny green leaves wavered in the breeze, and little drops of water dripped off its branches and onto my hands. The child of the pear tree that I’ll never see again; the tree that was my mother’s favourite.

The tree that I’ll never see her sitting under ever again.

This little tree doesn’t belong to me though. It would be cruel to keep it in my apartment; to force it to grow in a space too small and too cramped. When I think about the future of this tree, I think of that beautiful pear tree my mother and I planted, healthy and free.

That’s what I want for the sapling.

I might wish in vain that I could keep it forever just for me to enjoy, but that’s not what my mother would want. She would love that the new people living in her home kept the pear tree.

She would love that it brings them joy.

I rise from the ground, leaving the sapling standing tall and proud in the soft morning light.

I have taken so much in atonement for the loss of my mother. Tried to steal back what was stolen from me.

But you can’t own love- and you can’t steal it either.

You can keep memories and feelings in your heart, but you have to give back.

You have to give back two times over.