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i keep finding myself going back to the same millennial gray, gentrification-core coffee shop in the college town i recently moved to just because of their rose matcha. roses have been a core part of my identity my whole life — not just because they hold a significant place in turkish culture (especially in the cuisine, where we use rose water in jams, desserts, turkish delights, sherbets, and syrups), but also because my parents literally named me the romanized version of the arabic word for rose (ورده). every man i’ve ever dated has bought me bouquet after bouquet of roses for that exact reason. my mom planted red rose bushes around my great grandma’s grave after she passed away on my eighth birthday. i compulsively applied rose water for months on my belly after getting stung by a venomous jellyfish in fourth grade. i’m not even sure how much of that was actual medicine versus general wudhu-esque spiritual cleansing (when mehmet II conquered constantinople in 1453, he ordered the hagia sophia to be cleansed with rose water before converting it into a mosque — big thing in islam). just a month ago, i queued roses by the chainsmokers on the jukebox app at my iowa small town’s dive bar for the last time with one of my best friends. we sent our groupchat a drunken video of us dancing to it.
about a week ago, alisa, my summer roommate and friend of four years, bought a bouquet of pink roses from trader joe’s. they’re somehow still fresh — i think it’s because she talks to them every morning: “hello, lovelies. how are you doing today?” she says. she changes their water and trims their stems every day.
today, i went to yoga for the first time as a 23-year-old after being insufferable about it and calling it cultural appropriation my whole life, and there were rose petals on the floor. the instructor said it was an accident — they just started falling when she was throwing out an old bouquet, and she left them there because they were “vibey.”
i like to think my soul is intertwined with roses. i guess this post isn’t really about them, though — it’s about finding some kind of imagery that you connect with so deeply, both spiritually and emotionally, that it feels like it’s followed you around your whole life. i still have the rose my seventh-grade boyfriend gave to me pressed in a notebook somewhere in my childhood bedroom & you should too.
2d ago
Mar 8, 2025
stopping to smell the flowers....and to take 100 pictures of them. i can't wait to have a house with a garden
May 23, 2025
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