Hot Flashes (image adapted from peoriagarden.com)
A while back I was strolling through a community garden, and came across a blaze of color. First I registered the deep pink, almost with hints of red in it, then the shape. They looked like calla lilies (I don’t know tons of flowers, but calla lilies are so unique I can actually remember them). But I’d never seen a hot pink lily, fading ever so magically to ivory at what one grower calls the throat of the plant. I was in love, then I looked to the sign to find out the name: Hot Flashes.
I laughed and laughed and laughed. No dry, parched, colorless skin on these beauties. No widower’s hump or stoop in their stem. Just glowing pink and the tiniest striations of white, leading seductively to their yellow stamen. They were lush and vibrant and, if flowers could have an age, in their youthful splendor.
Something I apparently don’t share with them. Soon, oh so soon, I’ll have my first hot flash. My OB/GYN will be happy to learn of this. He’ll be the only one. He’s basically my age, and if I weren’t married and if my butcher and my 80+ acupuncturist weren’t already taken (these are my first alternates if I ever leave my husband, who completely understands why he’s in the running with our butcher, and may even harbor his own fantasies of leaving me for someone who invariably supplies the most amazing cuts of meat), I’d give this man a go. If he’s my age, his wife must be my age, so it’s probably hot flashes all around. But still.
Oh, was that an estrogen-deficient flight of fancy? I can’t recall.
I might need to plant some of these lilies next spring. And maybe intersperse them with some called, enticingly, Lipstick (slightly elongated, more red and burgundy with velvety petals), Purple Sensation, and maybe even some Blush Blend. Then it will be hot flashes inside and out, surrounded by the sensual feminine curves of every age that preceded them.
Blush Blend (image adapted from yardlover.com)