White Hydrangea

Dripping, a slow heat that suffocated as it lifted you into summer. I was twenty-four and had nothing to prove. I walked through the Yale University art museum while my best friend sat in front of a likeness to Michelangelo, tracing the every curve of people from history. What we didn't know was: we were creating our very own.

There was a white hydrangea plant outside of a church on the Yale campus. It created words inside my brain that hung like the branches themselves: sentences turned to paragraphs while my twenty-four year old self beamed and touched each flower. It was the happiest time of my life.

I was free. I went to bars and ordered margaritas with the abandon of the bees that sucked on the hydrangea's blossoms. I remember that plant, not only because I took copious pictures of it (although that, too), but because it was there only to be loved.

It was ninety degrees and the humidity lurked, turning into ghosts that I can only reminisce about in the present day. The heat seemed to evaporate as soon as it appeared. The hydrangea remained strong, tethered to the earth. It didn't seem bothered by anything, only happy to further illuminate the already piercingly bright day.