Grandville, Michigan: The Rose Room

This essay was an honorable mention in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest. 

Kelley hoisted the door open and a ding promptly followed. We peered around the empty shop, the vacancy of other people was unimportant because we felt welcomed into a room with only flowers. The scents met our noses with a cooling effect, almost like when mint Chapstick encounters lips. Our eyes were pleased with the blurred view of different hues coming from every which way. Without focusing in on a specific flower, the room looked like an abstract painting. We were stopped in the doorway taking it all in.

“This place is so cute,” Kelley spoke softly to me as she reached out stroking the petals of this grand, crimson, wonderfully fresh Chrysanthemum.

“I’ve never been to a place like this,” I claimed, sharing my awe. Kelley and I didn’t have much to our lives in Michigan but school and lacrosse. It wasn’t our home. This was the first place in Michigan I felt undoubtedly comfortable and serene.

The silence inhabiting the shop hushed us and forced our other senses. We waded through the aisles admiring the bushels and blobs of color that surrounded us. We took in the gentle scents of lavender, sage, and dirt creating the perfect blend. We took our time admiring the bundles of flowers, no two alike or the same. The stems already cut and the thorns already pricked. The room began to open up as we saw the flowers each individually and instead of them consuming us.

I started to think about Michigan in terms of why I was there and why I hadn’t decided to let go of where I came from. Michigan was completely foreign to me. Walking through those aisles, my mind kept flashing back to my hometown. I saw the downtown lights flooding the street sides as I looked at the ceiling lamps. I noticed some flower cutters on a back table and it took me back to hot sweltering days of poking and prodding the trees in our yard. My mind raced back and forth from my home to this new place, finally calming as another door came into my sight.

I curiously shifted towards the door. Grasping the handle, which felt like a car door in the middle of February, we shuffled through the door and into the chilled room letting the door collapse behind us. It was a long, narrow hallway-type room. Our pupils grew about two sizes bigger and mirrored the wall of colors before me. They weren’t mixed together this time though; the blues were in one place, the reds were bunched together, and the pinks covered their own space too. This was the rose room, filled to the brim and covered wall to wall with fresh roses giving us a sense of tranquility and relinquishing a bit of their purpose to us. We were in a trance. Time stood still.

We weren’t even acknowledging the presence of each other anymore, standing next to one another as if we were ghosts. I began to move forward, planting one foot at a time. Rooted in one place, I noticed a smaller clump of roses. An off-white base, almost cream, topped with a deep red color. The petals were big and full like the in drawings you see of roses. Perfectly imperfect in the way the petals seemed to fit together, like a puzzle. I reached for it touching the smooth stem between my fingers, feeling a chill run up my arm and then down my spine. I held that rose as I continued down the narrow hallway. I felt like Alice, but instead of Wonderland, I was in a room of roses that towered over me. The next rose I grasped was a vibrant, yet subtle yellow rose, and I kept wandering. The room seemed to continue forever. A new flower popping up as soon as I would turn the other way. Each flower represented another tie to this place, another memory for my mind to escape to. Something I desperately wanted away from home.

I ended up with enough roses to fill at least five vases. I could go on to describe each rose individually, as they each seemed to possess their own personality. We walked out the door, flowers in hand and grins extending beyond our faces. Nothing else at that moment mattered. My mind was numb with happiness and was content where it was. There was no curious racing from state to state. In fact, I still have the flowers. A bit duller and shrunk, but perfectly frozen in their state of beauty. I still think about that day every time I look at the roses. An insignificant day in the grand scheme of things, yet still holds power over me. I had found a place that manifested joy in the present rather than force a memory from the past.