Closing the Chapter (with Flowers and a Fork)

Fury. Florals. Cleaning Rituals.

My mother was a marvel of contradictions—a glamorous menace with a Benson & Hedges in one hand, mascara wand in the other, parallel parking a Toyota Celica like it was a Jaguar at the Plaza. She could threaten to return me to “the hospital where you came from” while reasurring you of the power of her unconditional love. She made meatloaf out of ketchup packets, relish, and a vague recollection of what ground beef might taste like. And she could charm a complete stranger in the bank line into confessing a long-buried scandal from spring break in Cancún, circa 1978—and then send them off feeling spiritually unburdened and inexplicably adored.

She had many talents. Housekeeping, I must tell you, was not one of them.

In our family, cleaning wasn’t a daily or even weekly practice. It was an event—often a rage-induced, curse-laden, elbow-deep-in-Lysol kind of event. The house lingered in a state of gently decaying clutter until something—or more often, someone—pushed her over the edge. The more upset she got, the cleaner the baseboards. I learned early that the sound of Windex meant someone had made a terrible mistake.

During one particularly spectacular fight, my father, in a suicidal lapse of judgment, told her to “calm down”—a phrase that’s never calmed anyone in the history of language. She paused just long enough to open the patio door, then slung the still-running vacuum over her shoulder and hurled it into the deep end of the pool like a lumberjack throwing an axe. You’d think she had practiced such a thing. The vacuum sparked, hissed, and promptly sank. When he asked what in the world just happened, she lit a cigarette, took a drag, and said, “I just shocked the pool. You’re welcome.” As if this were both a service and a favor. Which, in a way, it was.

I didn’t help. That wasn’t part of the ritual. My job was to move from room to room with the slow, silent shuffle of a prisoner sensing a change in the warden’s mood. If you were smart, you vanished. If you were lucky, she didn’t remember you were part of the family until it was over.

In the end, the house sparkled, smelled great, and she’d emerge red-cheeked and emotionally cleansed. She was never happier. There would be a few days of elevated peace and joy, which I cherished. The cycle was cruel, but the reward was high. The mess always came back, of course. But so did the rage. And so, eventually, did the vacuum.

Now that I’m an adult, I’ve learned that rage cleaning is surprisingly common. Which, honestly, tracks—because sometimes the only thing standing between you and total domestic collapse is pure, unfiltered fury. Rage may not be sustainable, but it sure gets the baseboards clean.

Some people enjoy cleaning. It’s fun. It releives tension. Gives you a sense of accoplishment and order. I wish I had that. Because I don’t.

Cleaning makes me feel awful about myself. Not because I dislike order—Lord knows I fantasize about a life where the pantry is labeled and the baseboards gleam—but because every doom pile feels like a personal failure. The elderly basket of clean-but-unfolded laundry becomes a manifesto on my inadequacy. The dishes whisper accusations. Cleaning doesn’t feel like self-care; it feels like penance. In light of this, I am not a tidy person. At all. I’m not talking about the cute, Instagram-messy kind of untidy. I’m talking coyote den quality, “open a cabinet and get hit by three tote bags, a rogue cat, and a tax document from the Obama years” kind of chaos.

When you're a natural-born mess, working up the will to clean a room can feel like preparing for battle without a general or a plan. It is hard, y’all. Spiritually, emotionally, categorically hard.

Fortunately, my mother, in her rare and less volcanic moods, had a softer strategy for coaxing herself (and occasionally, her reluctant offspring) into a semblance of domestic order: supermarket flowers. This, dear reader, is the gospel I now pass on to you.

It’s a far gentler ritual than rage mopping, but no less effective. All it takes is a $5 bouquet—something pink or frilly or half-wilted—and just enough faith in the sanctity of your surroundings to believe they’re worth the effort. And sometimes, miraculously, that tiny pop of beauty is enough to make you unload the dishwasher. Or at the very least, pretend like you might.

Here’s how it worked: she’d go to the grocery store and buy a cheap bundle of flowers. Not anything fancy. Just daisies, or sad little carnations, or roses that were already regretting their life choices. Sometimes my dad would bring them home, but she wasn’t the “wait around and hope for a man to remember florals” type. If company was coming, she’d march herself to the supermarket, buy a handful of off-brand blooms, and declare, “People lead better lives in the presence of flowers!”

And I swear to Neil Diamond, the woman was right.

It was a trick. But a powerful trick.

This isn’t even that messy, but no place for beauty to live. Those flowers deserve better!

Because you can have a living room that resembles the aftermath of a barn dance gone wrong—sippy cups in repose, rogue Legos underfoot, and a stack of mail tall enough to qualify for historic landmark status—but the moment you place a modest clutch of grocery store flowers on the coffee table, everything shifts.

Suddenly, your brain straightens its pearls and says, “Well. I suppose we live like this now.” And just like that, you’re clearing space around the arrangement, as if the carnations might be offended by clutter. Then you’re wiping the table so they have a nice place to sit. Then the sideboard. Then the sticky ring on the end table that’s older than your youngest child. Next thing you know, you’ve cracked a window, changed a lightbulb, and vacuumed so vigorously you frightened the dog. You look up, flushed, slightly misty-eyed, and realize: my goodness! You’ve cleaned the house. Accidentally. Elegantly. Almost like someone who has it together. Which, of course, you don’t. But who cares? The flowers certainly don’t.

Th flowers are kind of bossy but they get the job done. “People lead better lives in the presence of flowers.” - My Mom

Ah, but here’s the thing: you cannot just toss your flower bundle into any sad little receptacle and expect transformation. A murky glass vase pulled from beneath the sink—still scented vaguely of pickle brine—will not do. Flowers, like people, require context. They need a vessel with a bit of spine, a sense of occasion. Something small, solid, stout, and charming. Ideally, it should nod to memory or sentiment—your grandmother’s gravy boat, an old mint julep cup, the pitcher that once held iced tea and questionable secrets.

My mother preferred teapots. We had several, despite the fact that I never once saw her brew actual tea. I suspect their true purpose was ceremonial—intended for emotional triage, floral salvation, or perhaps just those days when the urge to beautify struck harder than the will to dust. She’d hack the stems with kitchen scissors, wedge them into a squat porcelain pot, and suddenly the house looked less like a hostage situation and more like Miss Marple might drop by for sherry.

These days, when entropy has crept in—papers stacking, socks multiplying, the dog shedding like it’s a side hustle—I reach for my own teapot. Not a family heirloom, just something heavy-bottomed and faintly ridiculous. One is chipped, the other smells vaguely of bergamot if you sniff it on a warm afternoon. But they work. They anchor the bloom, the moment, the day. They let me pretend, briefly, that I am a woman with intention, rather than a woman with laundry avoidance issues. And sometimes, that tiny deception is enough to get me moving. Or at least to clear off the table. Which, let’s be honest, is a triumph all its own.

“Can We Send Letters To The Dinosaurs?” 36x36” Acrylic on Canvas

I save the teapots for the moments when I need a little extra something—mojo, motivation, mild delusion. Or when I want to paint. Because for years, I’ve had this idea in my head: a whole series of florals in teapots. It sounds twee, I know. But for me, the image has always been about more than flowers and china. The teapots are stand-ins for the parts of myself that are trying to stay upright. They’re tidy. Contained. Domestic. They suggest a life that runs on rituals and routines instead of panic and caffeine.

“When Can We Go To Cookieville?” 36x36” Acrylic on Canvas

Some days I live up to the promise of the teapot. Other days, I barely manage to find clean socks and avoid whatever’s growing in the back of the fridge.

But lately, I’m starting to think the goal isn’t to “get it together” so much as it is to notice the moments when you almost do. To mark them. To put them in a vase and let them be beautiful, even if they’re wilting a little around the edges. To invite a friend over for tea to celebrate being works-in-progress together. (Note: by tea I mean queso and donkey chips, but I digress—you guys snack it up as you see fit).

We’re all just arranging what we can, with what we have, hoping it holds long enough to sit down and enjoy it.

“If I Eat Corn Will It Grow In My Tummy?” 24x30” Acrylic on Canvas

This collection has been simmering for months—long enough, I think, to finally stick a fork in it and call it done. Mother’s Day is this Sunday, and it feels like the right time to set it free. Poetic, even. A final flourish for a series born years ago out of a woman who was, by all accounts, gloriously flawed and 100% wonderful. That kind of wild contradiction is my native language.

If there’s a common thread running through all my paintings—whether they hang on your walls or never leave my studio—it’s this: beauty and chaos not only coexist, they need each other. Sweet and sour. Grace and grit. A splash of reverence with a healthy glug of irreverence. That tension, that tangle, is where the magic happens. It’s not tidy, but it’s true. And that, in the end, is the only thing worth painting.

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If you are curious, the Tea Party collection will launch 11am Eastern on Sunday, May 11, 2025.