Kool-Aid Flowers
I don't know about the rest of you, but for me the longest months of winter are January and February. I think the reason these two months always get to me is that I am already in an early state of anticipation for spring, and I am just plain cold. The bitter winds of January always seem to bleed into February and my cold, achy, old body can't handle it well. Every year I tell myself I will move more southerly, and every year I find myself in the cold blustery months of January and February freezing my tuckus off.
I can be such a dork.
For some reason, this year in particular seemed the worst. Granted, the temperatures and winter mix weren't nearly as bad as other years, but the anticipation of warmer days really hit me hard. By mid-February I was ready for a change, and felt almost sad. Would spring and summer ever arrive? I didn't know.
I often found myself staring into the oblivion. In my mind memories of other, warmer days replayed. In my head I knew spring and summer would eventually arrive, they always do. But my soul cried out for the spring and summer days and I yearned for any sign that they would be arriving soon.
Enter Valentines Day.
It's no secret that this Joyful Girl is not a big romantic. In fact, I abhor the gooey stuff. So when the famous February holiday of Valentine's Day arrives, I groan. There is something about every store being filled with four hundred and seventy-nine shades of red, pink and white that sickens me. The billions of heart-shaped whatnots sold throughout this country make me wonder why we bother to celebrate anything else. And don't even get me started on the price of cards--Oy!
It's an understatement to say I don't celebrate Valentine's Day.
The combination of Valentine's Day and the winter season was definitely cause for bristling this year. The dread in the pit of my stomach was so vast that it made even writing my articles for this issue of Mosaic Minds a drag. I was definitely not in a Joyful Girl mood, nor was I in a creative mood.
Enter Kool-Aid Flowers.
I was standing elbow-deep in hot, greasy dishwater when the Kool-Aid Flowers saved me. It seems so stupid, really, looking back. One minute I was staring out the kitchen window at the miserable winter conditions and the next I heard the words, "These are for you." I turned around after rinsing my hands and grabbing a towel to find a sweet guy standing before me with a bundle of Kool-Aid Flowers.
My jaw hit the floor.
"Oh ... My ... God," I gasped. "You brought me Kool-Aid Flowers!?"
Boy, did that comment get me a strange look. Of course, I was so taken with the brilliant royal purple petals and the golden yellow pistons nestled in a deep bed of green that I didn't care what the flower presenter thought. Instantly I raced to the flower bundle. As my eyes drank in the vibrant, exquisite coloring of the Kool-Aid Flowers, I saw the lightest smatterings of pinks and whites from the tiny tulips and lilies tucked in between. They highlighted the vivaciousness of the Kool-Aid Flowers.
"Oh look," I gasped as my hands went to the bundle. The man before me openly gawked. This was definitely not a typical reaction from me, and he knew it. But when I gently, tenderly, and slowly lifted the majestic flowers to my nose and closed my eyes as I inhaled their mystical scent, well, I think he thought I lost my mind.
A slow, sly smile spread across my lips as the memories flooded back. One whiff of these lovely, magical flowers, and I was right back to the age of seven.
"I'm thirsty," my best friend Sabrina whined. We were out in the middle of the muskeg fields behind the school and we were looking for sunny dew plants to collect. It was warm, even for this time of year in Alaska. We were hot, and we were parched. Neither of us had thought to bring water with us as we set about on our day's adventures.
"Yeah, me too," I stopped digging. "Wanna go home and get a drink?"
We looked around and surveyed our location. It'd be at least a mile hike back to her house, a mile-and-a-quarter if we went to mine. That would mean two to two-and-a-half miles round trip,all for a drink of water.
"Nah, keep digging," she instructed. "We need more sunny dews for our garden."
Sabrina was right, we did. So instead of trekking home that sunny afternoon, we dug. Each time we'd come across the wild sunny dew plant, we'd dig it up carefully and put it in our bucket. Like typical seven-year-old kids, we were on a mission. Sometimes we had to walk far away from each other to locate more of the sunny dews. When we did this, we'd yell back and forth at the top of our lungs. I'm sure everyone on the island heard us.
"Hey Cyli.....look at this," Sabrina screamed from her position near the treeline. Just the tone of her voice told me she had found something important. I went running. Between the heat of the day, the hard work of sunny-dew hunting and all the ground we had already covered, we were now more then parched. By the time I ran across the muskeg field and reached my best friend, I was dying of thirst.
I was almost ready to tell Sabrina we had to go home for a drink when I spotted what she found. "What is that?"
Sabrina could only shrug her shoulders.
Never before had we seen such a plant and the flower it blossomed--it was horrendous. There before us on two- to three-foot-high stalks of a silvery green stood these purple-and-yellow, feather-tipped, weird-looking flowers. They were horrid. They looked violent as their frothy petals splayed wide open in some twisted, mocking, horrific smile.
They were in a clump of about twenty and they waved slightly in the hot breeze. "Holy cow, these must be made by the devil himself," Sabrina breathed.
"I know!!!" I gasped. Moving closer I picked up a stick and touched one. I had to make sure they were neither carnivorous nor capable of shooting out poisonous gas. "My God, they're...."
"Creepy," Sabrina cried. I could only nod in agreement.
Sabrina was reluctant to go near the horrific flowers, but my curiosity would not allow me to stay away. I crept up on them, slowly, defiantly. No flower would scare me, by Jove. No sooner had I crept up to the flowers and leaned in closely to inspect them then a gust of hot air arrived. Suddenly the devil's flowers were in my face!
What followed next can only be attributed to the sheer dorkiness and stupidity of two self-proclaimed geniuses. I caught a whiff of the devil flowers and I fell onto my butt. Sabrina screamed. I screamed. But our screams were not the same type of scream. Hers was of horror, mine of wonder.
Snatching a long stalk of the flower I snapped one off as I struggled to my feet. "You gotta smell this!" I yelled as I thrust the flower toward Sabrina. She jumped back and prepared to karate chop me and the flower from Hell. She was screaming, "Get that thing away!" as I screamed, "Smell it, you idiot!"
In one final thrusting motion, I got the dangerous-looking flower to my best friend's nose. She caught a whiff of the scent I had just inhaled. Our eyes met and locked.
"KOOL-AID!" we both screamed in delight.
Sure enough, the devilish, horrific flowers spawned from the belly of Hell smelled like grape Kool-Aid. We were floored.
"We'll be rich!" I crowed as I drank down the scent of the grape Kool-aid.
"And famous!" She agreed as she sniffed at her own stalk and flower.
Right there, next to the clump of the miraculous flowers, we plopped to the ground and began plotting our destiny. Every kid in America--no, wait, the world--would want a personal collection of Kool-Aid flowers. Never again would we have to run home to quench our thirst. One sniff of these magnificent flowers and your thirst would melt away to the memory of grape Kool-Aid pouring down your throat.
We'd be hailed as heroes to all of child-kind. We'd be bastions of brilliance in a world dim and cold. We'd be famous, rich and oh-so-happy as we farmed Kool-Aid flowers all over America--no, wait, the world. Scientists would hang our pictures next to those of Newton and Einstein. Our discovery was incredible.
Of course, what we didn't know at the time was that our discovery had already been discovered--and named. What we found were not Kool-Aid flowers, as we named them; what we found were irises.
I told you I can be a dork. But so could Sabrina!
Standing in the kitchen of my apartment with the evil winter weather blustering outside, I explained what Kool-Aid flowers were to the man who had just handed me some. He laughed, slightly. I guess it is one of those things that you had to be there for. Either that, or I confirmed to him I really had lost my mind.
Whatever he thought, I carefully cut and placed the Kool-Aid flowers in a vase. Then I took that vase right along with me wherever I went during the next few days. The dismal, dreary feelings I have long associated with winter faded away. They were replaced with the warm, sweet sensation of Kool-Aid flowers in all of their mysterious glory.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the sweet man with the kind blue eyes who gave me the beautiful Kool-Aid flowers. He didn't know at the time how big a gift he gave. In a weak and weary month of a dank and dismal winter, he brought me sun and smiles and hope. For the rest of his life, every February I'll look to him and say only one thing "Hey, Kool-Aid Man."