Narcissus or Narcisseae. The man who could only look at himself. Desire. Narcissism. No empathy. No care. From the name, you may think of the man or the mental ailment, but Narcissus is simply a flower. A flower can't fall in love with its own reflection or have a superiority complex. The only thing daffodils can be superior to is the bushes that grow nearby.
When looking through the glass sliding door in my living room I can see the daffodils. Pops of yellow and in the dirt and the green of the grass. Occasionally, they’re orange with some red. Part of the time, they’re pale like a man stricken with fear. Most often, they have a cheerier aura around them. They make my rather dull heart shinier. Simply brass and an old cloth that always gets the job done.
Most of my year I look forward to the Spring. Some may say Spring is the best season because of its weather or the sunshine. But I have my own sunshine. My own tradition. The flowers and me. They’re only above ground for a couple months. Time is rather sparse for my daffodils.
I don’t know who planted them originally,or why they keep coming back. But every Spring, they grow. They grow toward the sun, but I like to think they grow toward me. They grow for me. They grow with me. I grow because of them.
I try to clip some from their ground and put them in a cup or vase,so I can make them live a little longer and stay their brilliant yellow forever. I preserve them as much as I can. But they always wrinkle and die. I will too.
I used to be smooth and soft when I was a baby. My hair was curled at the end and I had a smile in my dark, lacquered eyes. Now, I am older and a little more wrinkled. Like a plastic bag with nothing in it. A bag that was used to carry my most prized possessions, which have all spilled out by now or have been placed on the counter by grubby hands. A time will come when I am wrinkly and rough like those dead daffodils. I wonder if new daffodils will still be growing in the backyard.
I wonder if a new child will live in this house and get to breathe in the smell of those daffodils. And another child after that. When will the cycle of daffodils stop? I hope it never does. I hope that the daffodils will always be there and be a shining sun on a gray morning.
Daffodils should be planted in 50° weather. In autumn. When everything is crisp and dying, daffodils find it the best time to start their life. They are just babies at this point. Snuggled in the ground, like a child with their mother.
There is a youth to the flowers. I think that’s partially why I’m drawn to daffodils. I want to be young and beautiful like they always are. Obtain eternal youth. Maybe I’m more like Narcissus than they are. I am an aging woman who flinches at every wrinkle in her skin because it’s seen as an ugliness that should be eliminated. Burned from the skin so that she can feel like she did before. Young, small, and unbroken by the world.
Daffodils should be potted first, then moved to the moist ground, then primped and trimmed. They have specific times when they can grow. The first 3-6 weeks of spring. All this may seem like tiring work,but I have found that I don’t have to do any of this to my daffodils. They are a wild breed. They grow when they please. They grow where they please. Right next to the bush with the pink flowers.