the rose I got up to see

When I was a student, I had a friend whose mother was a keen gardener. She was a pianist too, so I felt she was a kindred spirit. In the holidays I sometimes went to stay with the family for a few days.

One day my friend said to me, ‘You know, my mother actually got up early today because she had a feeling that a certain flower was going to open this morning in the garden. She said she didn’t want to miss it. Can you believe that?’ We thought it was incredibly sweet, but also incomprehensible. How could anyone actually think that flowers were important enough to get up early for? Clearly the only things that were important were: who was in love with whom, who got what in their exam results, and how we were going get through the summer on a very limited budget. Getting out of bed for a flower was not part of our world-view.

Yet recently I have found myself going out early into the garden on several occasions to see if a particular flower has opened, and to photograph it if it has. I seem to have turned into that kind of person. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis!