LET THERE BE PANSIES!

A couple of days ago I turned the channel to Detroit Public TV. I planned to watch the late night news for five or ten minutes. It’s something I’ve started doing recently—watching a bit of American television each day to broaden my perspective on how things are with other people. Imagine the humour of it! Usually I am complaining that too much of our local news is American, with a splash of Canadian thrown in there. But now we don’t hear so much about the States. There’s little room for it by the time they finish giving us the latest COVID 19 numbers, predicting future financial disaster and presenting the arguments for and against the wearing of masks in public. But I digress. Near the top of the Detroit news was the following revelation “Local greenhouses say they will be dumping their pansies now that the governor has declared them to be a non-essential service.” What was this? Dumping pansies? My heart stopped beating for a moment. There it was! My reckoning with the truth had arrived. In the comfort of abundance, the idea of scarcity holds the power to unhinge us. Fear is the enemy of hope. Sure I was afraid, but I figured I’d done pretty well over the past month at absorbing our new reality in a hopeful manner. When the first toilet paper buying panic began, I checked my cupboard, found enough there, and promised myself that I’d find a reasonable facsimile of the old Eaton’s catalogue somewhere if I couldn’t get anymore by the time it was needed. When my friend bought the only can of corn on a grocery store shelf, I assured myself that if no more corn appeared in desperate times there would surely be canned peas to buy. I wouldn’t particularly want them, but still they would be there. Nobody in their right mind buys canned peas. When someone dear to me bemoaned the shortage of frozen broccoli I smirked generously and offered to freeze for her some fresh broccoli from my well-stocked refrigerator. But now this. The governor of Michigan was declaring pansies to be non-essential. How could it be? Spring is coming late to Alberta this year, later than to Detroit. It’s already April 12 and we’ve hardly had a day when snow didn’t fall. The average daily temperature hovers about twelve Celsius degrees below normal. Migratory birds check the weather forecast and book an extra week or two in the trees of warmer locations. It’s been too cold to put plants outside. When we finally break through, be it late this week or late in the next, there will be pansies to buy. Or will there? “Pansies,” I shouted at the TV while reaching for the remote control to switch to the Movie Channel. “You can’t dump healthy pansies! If you don’t need them, send them to me. I need them.” That night I dreamed of the pansies on my balcony, cheerily blooming in fragrant profusion. But when I awoke, the air was moist with the hint of snow. First thing in the morning I called the local home improvement store. “Garden centre,” I said to the electronic voice that wanted to know what department I needed. To my surprise, a living, breathing human picked up the phone, a young woman by the sound of her. “Is your garden centre open?” I asked breathlessly. “No,” she said with the hint of a smirk. “There’s too much ice and snow out there right now.” This might have placated me, but it didn’t. I was looking to the future. “Do you think it will open?” I squeaked. Now she was in full-on deal-with-the-crazies-out-there mode. “I am pretty sure the snow will eventually melt,” she said soothingly. It is snowing a little today. So far I haven’t called any garden centres in Detroit. Nor have I sought any more news from that suffering city. Deep in my heart, I continue to hope for pansies.