Dear Reader,
The night before, I told Alexa to set an alarm for 7 a.m. in the morning. It would be just enough time for me to down one cup of coffee, clean litter boxes, feed the cats, toss on some clothes, and clean out the trunk of the car. I was so excited. This is the time of year (I live in Sarasota), when I give the plants in my flower garden that have bloomed all winter, a haircut--a butch haircut. The plants will grow back stronger and they'll be gorgeous, but while I'm waiting for that to happen, the garden looks barren of any color. So every year, early in the month of May, I head for the nursery. But since we're in the midst of the pandemic, sadly I'd accepted the fact that I wouldn't be going to the nursery this year.
But as the adage goes: "Where there's a will, there's a way."
I called the nursery and explained to the man on the other end of the line, that I desperately wanted to buy some plants, but I didn't want to be around other people right now. (I'm staying in quarantine until I decide it's safer to go out.) "If you're here at 8 a.m. in the morning," he told me, "you'll probably be the only person in the nursery." And he was right. The next morning at 8 a.m. I put on my mask and gloves, got out of my car, grabbed a rolling flatbed cart, and headed into the open air rows and rows of plants, even though the overhead irrigation was still watering everything in the nursery and I was getting soaked--I didn't care.
When I'm surrounded by flowers at the nursery, I feel like I'm in a magical world. So normally, I spend a lot of time with the plants visualizing how the colors will look together and where I'm going to plant them when I get home. But not this time. When I saw something that made me smile, I grabbed it. Fifteen minutes later, the flatbed cart overflowed and I headed for the check out. The folks at the nursery had installed a counter extension with a plexiglass guard, so I was 6 feet away, and when it came time to pay, I inserted and retrieved my own credit card. I told the cashier I would load my own plants today, sprayed my receipt with sanitizer and away I went. Soaked, happy and smiling.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is BLACK SHACK ALLEY, by Joseph Zobel. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.
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