Tournesol

When I was young, I had a flower shop and cafe in Toronto. It sort of happened to me, becoming a business owner. I had been in an unhealthy relationship with someone I shouldn’t have ever been close to but out of that weird and toxic time I gained a healthy skepticism about the world and some rudimentary knowledge about business. It was his cafe at first and then it became mine, partly a gift, mainly a leash giving me a false sense of independence where he could keep tabs and literally watch me all day long. I took to the flowers pretty quickly. I even took on small weddings, friends would introduce me as their florist.

It was a new beginning for me but I didn’t know that yet. It was 2010 (I think) , the economy was good, well better than it is now. The cafe/ flower shop concept was fresh and it was in a building that gave me the perfect captive audience every Saturday morning when the dance school next door had children’s lessons and the cafe filled with parents. This is where so much of my identity now began to take shape.

After too long I ended that weird relationship but I found my confidence really wobbly. I had had most of the magic removed from my life, everything seemed dull and hopeless and frustratingly binary. I was either hot or not, the world accepted me or it didn’t. The man in the weird relationship was 21 years older than me. I had been groomed and put on a rickety pedestal. I worked so hard to balance and to keep up with his ideal. A small, helpless girl, a girl on his arm that made him look powerful. He loved that song that goes “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met you. I picked you out and shook you up, and turned you around. Turned you into someone new… But don’t forget, it’s me who put you where you are now and I can put you back down too. Don’t you want me baby?” God if I could go back in time and tell myself to run, I would.

I just wanted validation and he gave me some diluted version of that, when he wasn’t reminding me that I was young and stupid and small and not really very attractive at all.

Anyways I got out. I was in a patch of bad health (stress no doubt) but eventually I found myself feeling confident enough to date… someone closer to my age this time.

Along came a boy, with curly hair. He was a childhood friend of a friend.

He was tall, much taller than me. Very handsome. He smelled different than anyone I had ever been close enough to smell. He wore a suit, he worked in finance, he was young, younger than me and he LOVED flowers. He left his pocket square under my pillow, he bought me real jewelry. I had never even heard of a pocket square before, and it was the first real piece of jewelry I had ever owned. It’s still one of my favourite possessions. A pearl bracelet from Tiffany’s. He was special, he felt too special for me. I worried constantly that I wouldn’t be enough. That worry distracted me too much. I wish I had known that I could relax and enjoy so much of my life that I actually spent overanalyzing and literally spinning out about. Hindsight ugh.

I loved that he loved flowers, I hadn’t met a boy who openly admitted to loving flowers before. Most of my male customers gave stupid excuses for buying them like “I’m in the doghouse again”, “My wife said I never do this so here it goes”. How fragile do you have to be to resist the objective beauty and poetic symbolism of flowers?

He sent me pizza at work so that I wouldn’t forget to eat and took me out for fancy meals. He was soft in all the ways that a man should be soft in my view. He liked sunflowers best, he called them “tournesol” because he spoke fluent French. He was never late for a date, in fact always early, sitting at the bar, having a champagne cocktail and waiting for me. He visited me in hospital when I got sick and made me food to help me heal. Years after we dated he confessed to some same sex experiences. I wasn’t surprised, nor did I feel threatened or confused. It made sense, no-one else had been quite so tender towards me before. Maybe it was that part of him that made him so sweet. I was too young to know what to do with this kind of man. I fumbled and ended it because I was scared of someone taking proper care of me for once.

It took another failed relationship and marriage for me to remember what I deserved, and to remember that there was a different kind of “man” in the world and I didn’t have to settle for whatever scraps were being left for me. It took me a few years more to realize that I’m queer too. This isn’t a controversy or even a novel thought. I am not the first woman to discover that her standard for men is too low. I’m not the first woman to realize that queer joy is the stuff of utopian dreams. It’s only after watching new shows like Heartbreak and Heated Rivalry, and reading queer teen fiction with my kiddo that I find myself in that blissful mind palace of “what if’s”. It’s not with regret that I look back, just with appreciation and inspiration. I want to believe that the future of love is bright and fair and compassionate.

I want to believe that the future is filled with men loving men, romantic or not, filling their own homes with flowers that make them feel things. I know that appreciation and desire exist even in the spaces that aren’t safe. I want to believe in a future where we all feel safe in our desire and appreciation of others.

I did eventually marry a queer man and witnessing his slow but affirmed “coming out” brings tears to my eyes. The joy he feels when he knows he is safe to be himself makes me so proud of him and his bravery.

I come to you here at 40yrs old to say. Wait for the man who has a favourite flower, that watches the same movies without some snarky lens that is protecting his self esteem. Wait for the man who knows that other men are attractive, who isn’t afraid to explore all of his desires without shame.

These men exist and they are special, and you’re special too. Let them take care of you.

If you must marry a man, marry a man who likes flowers.