A CONVERSATION WITH ROSIE

Me: (to the rose bush in my bedroom) Okay, Rosie! This is the day you go outside! Rosie: Maybe not Wendy. If you pick me up and haul me through that door, dozens of petals will fall. And you know, I can never, never get those petals back. Me: But Rose, you’ve been in my bedroom for two full weeks now. You’re taller than my shoulder. Your thorns are like swords. Your leaves are making a mess on the floor. There’s a wet spot lurking under your pot on the linoleum. It’s time for you to go out. Rosie: But Wendy! I am covered in opulent blossoms. Several of my buds are still waiting to unfold. I say we keep me right here. We can spend the nights together. I can watch over you while you sleep. Me: Be reasonable Rosie. The huge white geranium went back out a week ago. So did the Martha Washington fully in bloom. The chrysanthemum returned to the patio without so much as a whimper of complaint. The pansies never even came in. I want you to go back out. Rosie: What if it snows again? It snowed on September 12 and 13 and 20 and 21 and 22. You didn’t think I should be out in the snow then. What’s different about now? Me: Well Rosie, it isn’t snowing now, and even though they’re predicting highs of three degrees in the next few days, we’re almost at the end of September. Rosie: Precisely my point. It’s almost the end of September. Winter is coming. You told everybody that bringing in the plants was your personal strategy for pushing back against an early winter. Me: So maybe I’m giving up on that strategy. Sometimes winter in Edmonton starts around Thanksgiving. There are things we cannot change, rosie; things we must accept. Rosie: Accept, you say? You with the thermostatically controlled heating system and the electric blanket Mark and Tracey gave you last Christmas. Go ahead! Put me out there where you won’t see me. It’s fall, you know, and you don’t spend much time out there, especially now that David is staying in bed to heal a pressure wound. You know that David was going out there every day in the summer, but now he’s not. Who will go out there and admire me? Me: Surely, Rosie, you aren’t still craving attention. Dozens of Laurier House staff have sung your praises. Every guest we’ve had in the past two weeks has come into my bedroom to celebrate your beauty. Even our five bouncing grandchildren made a special effort to keep you looking lovely. How much attention does one rose bush need? Rosie: Okay Wendy. Blame the victim. It’s my vanity that’s the problem is it? Put me out in the cold. Watch my petals drop. Offer me nothing but neglect and threatened frost. And after all I’ve done for you! You know what I think? Me: No. You’d better tell me. Rosie: I think you are trying to let go of a few things and using me as the scapegoat, the forerunner of lettings-go. I think you’re using me to prove that you can do it. Me: (sighing the big sigh) this is what happens when a rose bush spends too much time with a psychologist.