I have always loved flowers. Not as a florist, not as a gardener - just as a person whose memories grow in pots and vases. Peonies bloomed at my grandmother's dacha - lush, generous, always a little too much. When I smell them, I am seven years old again, eating strawberries with sugar, sitting on a wooden bench in the shade of grapes.

Lilies of the valley are something completely different. Modest, quiet, a little evasive. I was given them once, and then I understood that love may not be bright, but deep.

And there are also flowers that I fell in love with as an adult. Eucalyptus - for its bitterness and restraint. Dahlias - for their strange confidence in being strange. Chrysanthemums - because they are called "autumn", but they bloom as if in defiance.

The other day I bought myself a small bouquet - roses, thyme and carnations. For no one. Just because I wanted to remind myself: beauty is also care.

I increasingly think that flowers are like books. Some are heavy, full of drama and the smell of rain. Others are light, like the wind across the field. And they are all about us.

If you, like me, can't pass by a flower stall without stopping by, we are from the same flock.

With love for the living,
Marina