A young woman points a camera at her partner, as if to interview him, and asks: “what’s the equivalent of flowers, but for men? Like in the same way a guy would get his girlfriend flowers, what would men want instead?”

After an embarrassed pause, he asks: “…are flowers not acceptable?”

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Ladies. Also gentlemen? Etc..

Statistically, most men receive flowers as a gift for the first time at their funerals. After they’ve died.

So give the people in your life their flowers while they can still smell them. Give them flowers before they’ve been buried in a claustrophobic little box in a cold, dark, dusty tomb in the ground, or lit on fire and burned until their ashes are scraped into an urn and set on the mantelpiece or scattered with awkward reverence along the bank of a river on a cloudy day. Give them flowers before their cold and stiff and unsettlingly still corpse has been dumped surreptitiously into the bog under cover of darkness, or thrown overboard into the sea, or wrapped up in a blanket that nobody else is ever going to find useful ever again (maybe because of the cats?) and returned gently to the earth at the edge of a grove of trees. Don’t wait to bring flowers until after their last precious moments of human consciousness, the last page of the story book, the last thing they will ever think or taste or feel or smell or see or hear. They say that hearing is the last sense to retire, persisting for a few moments after the last death rattle. Smell is also one of the last.

Don’t wait to bring home flowers for too long, don’t wait until you can’t anymore and you’re standing there wishing that you had.

In most cases, there’s still time. It us not too late.

There is an intricate connection between love and mortality best summed up thusly: one day, each of us is going to run out of time.

It’s partly the finite nature of our time here that gives life value. Knowing we won’t be here forever the relationships we nurture in our lifetimes more meaningful, whether those relationships are platonic, familial, straightforwardly romantic, or otherwise. We don’t walk through this life alone, and that matters. We are lucky enough to share this “one wild and precious life” with companions who bring laughter and solidarity and friendship into our lives, and leave behind beautiful memories in the wake of that. When we do inevitably run out of time, all of the ways in which we have touched the lives of the people around us are left behind – life a footprint. The entire world is different because each of us was here, and because we were here together, and the world we leave behind for whoever is here next will be what it is because of us.

So we ought to give each other our flowers while we’re here. I don’t necessarily mean give him flowers in the literal sense, especially of you don’t know him, because – well. We’ve collectively inherited some complicated layers of cultural or traditional Meaning and Symbolism such that it’s sometimes tricky to seperate steep expectations of sexual conquest and from the impulsive purchases made by the hopeless romantic, from an offerring of literally just flowers thank you, (as Georgia O’Keeffe insisted of her paintings until her dying day). This is all very silly, except when it isn’t.

There are and there have always been many different kinds of love. These are messier and more complicated, I think, than the eros/philia/agape distinctions from the ancient greeks, but the ancient greeks were definitely onto something. Not all of the different kinds of love require hugs and hand holding and kisses for the sake of closeness; for some of them, it helps. It’s tremendously kind to be discerning and honest and stay true to yourself as you learn how to tell the difference in your own feelings towards other people.

All this to say that I’ve recently heard the phrase “give someone their flowers” interpreted in a way that is not strictly literal. To give someone their flowers might be as simple as making somebody feel seen, known, or appreciated. Tell people all of the best things you think about them, all of the ways they make your life better. Thank them for being here. Say the things you might one day have to say about them at their funeral, but say those things to their face, or write it down and share it in the right moment. Better that they go through life knowing they’re loved than to always be left wondering.

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Daffodils are pretty and smell good and are also objectively a little weird if you think about it. Lilacs are similarly pleasant. Roses are fine, and also a big cliché. There is nothing wrong with clichés, as they’re usually that way for a reason, it’s just that roses are the vanilla ice cream flavor of flower options, plus they’ve got their own equivalent of a handkerchief code situation going on with the different colored roses and their traditionally symbolic meanings and I’ve never bothered to look into that. Orchids are lovely and sophisticated and also immensely difficult to care for. Lavender is inherently sapphic, no I will not elaborate. Violets same. Lilies of the valley are cute and make me think of fairies. Rowan blossoms are a traditional element of folklore, I think, and are therefore magical. Cherry blossoms are also very pretty but the timing is all wrong. Sunflowers make me think of Amsterdam and blackbirds. Lilies are elegant. Locusts made me think of eastern philosophy and religion. Tulips also make me think of Amsterdam, but for entirely different reasons. Wildflower or wildflower adjacent flowers like clover and calendula and zinnias and daffodils and buttercups and dandelions and bachelor’s buttons and queen anne’s lace and yarrow – eventually I am just going to take a bunch of seeds and scatter them somewhere they won’t cause too much havoc to the local ecosystem and hope for the best. Green carnations are hella gay, per Oscar Wilde.

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If you can’t say the thing out loud, because that’s often difficult, but the person to whom you would like to give flowers is still here – there’s an old saying that actions speak louder than words, anyhow. Hold the door for them. Open doors for them. Do the dishes. Make them a sandwich – bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, you’re a sandwich, unlike the distinct but closely related species of seawich. Offer to lend books. Remember their birthdays and important anniversaries. Send christmas cards. Help them with their homework. Share conversation and company. Hold them for the extra few seconds because you won’t be able to hold them when they’re gone.

Pick a wildflower bouquet in the springtime and leave it on the kitchen counter in a jar.