Flower sellers: Explore a tradition no one talks about
Under the burning sun of the morning and surrounded by metallic sounds of angry claxons there’s an old man in sandals standing in the middle of the street, he does not talk too much but makes signs that you could recognize through your car’s window, especially this one where he stretches his arm and with a wrinkled and dry finger due to the extreme heat of my hometown will point out at the flowers laid on his forearm close to his chest, the bright sun would make it difficult to appreciate all the different colors and sizes of roses across the reflection in the crystal but this guy will come closer and make it easy for you to choose your favorite one, hoping you will like it so much it will make you open your window and ask the price.
If you look closely, you will catch the wrinkles surrounding his eyes, a consequence of the many times he needed to close them to see better the expressions of the driver, it is easy to notice the cuts in his arms by having the roses with spines held during multiple hours throughout the day, when the traffic light turns red and the cars are obligated to stop, when your mom sighs because she could not pass through the green light and know you and all your family will get late to that appointment, these peculiar sellers will come closer and make your mom even angrier by selling her flowers she does not need and does not have time to appreciate,
“poor guys”
Meanwhile, she will whisper nodding to him in decline and breaking eye contact with the guy already coming towards the car.
It took me years of this frequently happening to notice that it is not just old guys who sell flowers on the streets of my hometown but mothers carrying their babies over their shoulders; these little humans will also have some roses on their hands and will wave them as a marketing strategy, teenage boys with broken shoes will carry them two, sisters, grandmothers, even a whole family arranging millions of bouquets,
They not only sell flowers on the street, but some people from this market chain will think more strategically and stand outside of theaters where your little cousin just performed his ballet show, on the doors of the church offering a simple margarita so people can grief with something pretty between their tears and in front of the schools right before summer starts and students run away from high school forever,
And even though I can feel empathy for these people when I see them offering flowers without success, shouting prices that everybody ignores fault of their self-consuming lifestyles that do not even allow them to glance at the color of the roses, I have noticed there is certain beauty with this flowers market chain, maybe this guys just want your money but my way of perceiving this business is that people still think nice things are worth your time and spending money on someone’s else’s smile is still valid.
Why not sell newspapers? cigarrettes? these flower sellers are a shout-out to humanity to open our eyes to the need for simple pretty things, they are offering them in small gaps of our day without us searching or asking and most of us are just choosing to ignore what has the power to transform a moment of stress or a broken relationship into an exchange of flowers and feelings, they are offering us forgiveness, happiness, and kindness in a world where searching for pretty things has been cornered into a tedious duty and people does not know anymore how to get out of their monotony without help.
“poor guys”
She will whisper, but for me, they are not poor flower sellers but signs, hints spread all over our lives shouting to us without words how much we need to buy a flower and maybe slow down life a little to let kindness flow through ourselves.
