My mother loved everything that glittered. She was green. Single-minded. Pushing through the dark.

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Today I repotted her plants, trying to keep them alive for another season.

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When I think of my mother, I think of The Big Golden Book of Fairy Tales. I think of Snow White and Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty, and Jack and the Bean Stalk.

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I think of Thumbelina in her walnut shell on the windowsill. How she watched the world bloom looking out a window.

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One of my mother’s final recollections included the flowers she carried on her wedding day: “Fairy roses with baby's breath.” She spoke of her wedding dress the color of “dusty rose.” Her satin shoes tinted to the same effect. My father in his uniform extending a branch.

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I have imagined myself folded inside her body. An embryo. Not a whole person yet, but the germination of a dream… In that dream, I have seen calla lilies; yellow pansies stamped by black paws; ruffled peonies; abstract poppies; watercolor sweet peas and pastel forget-me-nots. I have seen stars and fireworks.

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I have seen it all in the dazzling display behind my eyelids before falling asleep. In some ways, perhaps, I have seen it, even before knowing, through the strange displays of biophotonic light as signals intersect through the optic nerve reaching my visual cortex. These, the first flowers and paintings of my inner life.

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As a child, I remember planting tulips and pushing the bulbs deep underground; the soil sticking to my fingers. I remember them in full-effect, lit by transformative sun, dancing to the choreography of the wind.

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Year after year, the earth has burgeoned after abysmal winter, bursting into color for my mother’s birthday. Contrary to feeling, it seems this year will not differ; there will be no divergence from the pattern of winter into spring.

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Throughout my childhood, I learned to eulogize what slips away. I would lay in my bed trying to recount every memory. Ever fearful of the softening edges of time.

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Part of the ritual of sleep was learning to fly in my dreams. I got into the habit of flying out of my body and spinning above the rooftops.

Once situated in the sky, I could will myself forward. I could land in our first apartment. I could enter. See the winding vines and green leaves of the hanging plants. The parakeet's rainbow wings. My mother’s fringed jacket. Her pink perfume bottles.

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Now, when I dream, I am often "home." A place both familiar and different. In my dreams, sometimes my mother is there and we are inhabiting a common place where I am both relieved that we have more time, and aware that that I am dreaming. It is usually when I am just becoming aware that the dawn is breaking through the window and dragging me through the door of consciousness.

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When I re-enter the world, I am silently sickened opening my eyes to the room.

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When I refocus my eyes, I see the paintings I’ve made hanging on the walls. I have planted my garden with oils. 18x24 and 24x36. Flowers and flower-like people look out from canvases, wooden panels, and paper. Even the ceiling is stuccoed with something called a rosebud texture, a striking repetition of floral shapes made beautiful by morning light.

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In these moments, lost in the patterns on the ceiling, I fall into reverie...

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I see the tiny garden my mother tended at the nursing home when she was well-enough to go out. I see my mother’s windowsill of potted plants. Especially, the orchids, the fierce purple flowers my mother tended when she could no longer walk.

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I see: Mother’s Day flowers. Birthday flowers. Brightly lit trees and lava lamps. I remember lollipops tied together like a bunch of balloons and cakes decorated with buttercream.

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I remember her black velvet painting of sunflowers. And, the small drawing she sent me on an index card: A bouquet of lavender—an offering of peace.

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Her last postcard was hand-colored and characteristically bold. Fierce-pinks, reds, and oranges. Shocks of yellow, purple and green.

Cryptically poetic, it read:

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“Kaleidoscope Flowers / My Fiesta, Etc. / Peace / Smiles / 

I Miss You /   Live Free”

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It was the last, magnanimous, bouquet.