I’m staring at some roses—two dozen in deep orange—I bought at the store even though it is cold and snowy outside. Those roses sit on a buffet unit in a simple vase below an oil painting with a gilded frame, and two candles in silver holders are on either side. The morning sun shines on them.
The scene is worthy of a painting by Vermeer. There are few sights as magical as this.
What joy it brings to the room.
There is nowhere locally these could be grown. They are likely flown in from Ecuador, Kenya, Colombia, or Ethiopia. We speak often about the merits of local and I fully agree. But here we must call attention to a great exception. This is a miracle of the marketplace.
No government program makes this possible. It is a result of international cooperation on a grand scale, delivered straight to your home, giving you direct access to the great flower so legendary in song, poetry, and prose.
The virgin mother of Christ was simply called the Rose of Sharon, a reference to prophecy in Hebrew Scriptures.
The 15th century popular German song goes: “Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming, From tender stem hath sprung! Of Jesse’s lineage coming, As men of old have sung. It came, a flow’ret bright, Amid the cold of winter, When half-spent was the night.”
We sing this at Christmas. How many people even know it is speaking about Mary? I would venture, not too many. And note the lyricist’s amazement that a rose can bloom in winter. Well, it’s winter and I am looking at fresh roses on my mantle. It is international trade that made a miracle common.
Here’s another from 15th-century Germany: “There is no rose of such virtue, As is the rose that bare Jesu.”
Then there’s poetry.
“O my Luve is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June,” wrote 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns. “O my Luve is like the melody, That’s sweetly played in tune.”
The rose makes its appearance in prose, such as H.L. Mencken’s remark: “An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”
That’s funny but I’m not entirely sure why.
The rose often enters into common idioms too.
Every rose has its thorn.
Stop and smell the roses.
Everything’s coming up roses.
Rose-colored glasses.
The bloom is off the rose. This expression can apply to romance but also to business startups.
We speak of rosy cheeks and everyone knows what that means. A thousand makeup products are on the market designed to create that visual.
We say these things without thinking about the deeper tribute to the rose they all represent. Seeing two dozen roses on your mantlepiece puts it all in perspective. The legend, the love, the adoration, and the fame all make sense. It’s a wonder that nature has given us such delicately perfect creatures. It’s enough that they look fantastic. They also have an intoxicating scent, which one might think would be too much to ask.
Not far from me is one of the world’s most remarkable rose gardens, in Elizabeth Park, Hartford, Connecticut. The garden was created in the 1880s and is still in full bloom in season, thanks to thousands of volunteers who do all the work every year in service of this flower. In addition to the main gardens, there is a heritage section with rose vines hundreds of years old.
Mankind has protected these magical jewels from nature from time immemorial. Any house that attempts a rose garden has someone within who fusses all year long.
And yet anyone can have them in their homes today in all seasons. This is something wonderful.
Think of how recently the possibility of holding blooms in winter is for us. Seventy-five years ago, it was common in well-to-do households that the wife and mother would tend to her garden of orchids grown indoors. This is perhaps one reason the orchid achieved fame: it can be grown indoors.
It was a matter of pride for a household that the husband and father, provided he had a desk job or otherwise worked in a professional-class capacity, would arrive at the office with a newly cut orchid in his lapel. It signalled prosperity and a beautiful home life—as if to brag about his life outside the office. Crucially, this could go on all year.
There were no commercial markets for orchids at the time. They had to be grown at home.
As for the rose, it was out of the question in winter. To be sure, roses can be grown in greenhouses. Most of the imported ones are. But such is rarely available to the household, and, when they do exist, there tend to be other priorities.
The commercial availability of year-round roses in American grocery stores really took off in the 1980s and 1990s, so very recently. This was driven by a massive shift in global supply chains, lower-priced air freight, and liberalized trade policies that flooded the U.S. market with high-quality imported cut roses from South America.
This was the game changer. In the whole of human history, the rose was rare. Seemingly out of nowhere, they were there for anyone. How often do we think of how amazing this is? How often do we, so to speak, stop and smell the roses?
Gentleman, you surely know the following secret. There is no argument with a woman that is not quickly mitigated or even finally settled by the sudden appearance of a dozen or two fresh roses. I don’t entirely understand why this is true but it just is. They contain some magic that seems to be inaccessible to the male mind but is ever and universally prescient to the female mind. (Please forgive my generalizations.)
For now, I’m just happy looking at the roses on my buffet unit. For all the difficulties of the world, the contentious arguments on social media, and even the riots in the streets, there is the simple, settled, and confident rose always there to remind us of higher truths. We are the luckiest generation to have them at our fingertips year-round.
