This morning, I was a depressed, frumpy loser. But then, in a moment, everything changed. You see, I just purchased a forty-five-dollar bouquet of dried willow branches from a pixie-haired woman at the farmers’ market. Now, miraculously, my life sings with limitless potential.
Watch as I parade around town with my elegant twigs! Look at the way my luxurious, spindly sticks reach upward, toward the heavens—but don’t look too closely, because they will poke your eye out.
My outfit, which seemed drab mere moments ago, is suddenly impossibly chic, elevated to high fashion by the completely insane amount of kindling in my arms. Before, I was unremarkable. Now my very being begs a litany of questions, such as, “Wait, why does she have all those sticks?” and, “I’m scared—isn’t it fire season?”
Clearly, these are stylish branches, rather than regular, on-the-ground branches. You can tell because they’re wrapped neatly in crisp brown paper, like a slab of organic salmon. I enjoy cradling the bouquet casually against my bosom, as if it were a baby. But of course it is not a baby—it is sticks, which is so much better.
I can barely contain my joy as I courageously tromp home along the busiest of avenues. “Look, I have sticks!” I shout, like a gorgeous rottweiler.
As I walk, I contemplate where I’ll display my bouquet—not on the dining table, which would be obvious, but on the floor, which is more bohemian. To be honest, I have to put the sticks on the floor, because I don’t have a dining table, because I spend my money on more important things, like artisan yard scraps.
I imagine what guests will think when they see my stick bouquet. “Wow,” they’ll remark. “She really has a keen eye that sees beyond surface-level beauty and finds splendor in the mundane. I bet she knits her own sweaters and strains her own nut milk, and when she goes to karaoke she probably chooses a Fiona Apple song and sings it perfectly on key, in a way that’s somehow endearing and self-aware and does not seem showboaty at all.”
Lest the sticks lose their lustre, I dream of other charming objects I might soon haul around town—a baguette, a pumpkin, an empty guitar case, a geriatric rescue tabby named Cilantro. In my mind, each new item is arranged around the branch bouquet, forming a beautiful cornucopia, an altar to women who refer to jams as “preserves.”
I know innately that the simple act of purchasing this bouquet will launch me into the future of my dreams. Soon I’ll have a small army of back-yard animals—chickens, bees, goats, and a completely humanely raised bear. I will brew beer that is so hoppy it literally jumps out of the glass. I will bake pies using berries that mankind has not yet encountered and cannot comprehend. Unlike these branches, my life is about to blossom. Any minute now. ♦
