SELF-CARE FOR WILDFLOWERS by Amy Spies

Wildflowers don’t care where they grow.
—Dolly Parton

Jax wakes to a burning scent. Her eyes stay sealed. No emergency, she realizes, simply the toaster. However, no one in this household eats broiled bread, except her. Therefore, they do not own a toaster. She smiles, imagining grilled crust on a tray of orange and purple poppies bending her way. 

Her lids crack open to darkness. Oh, right, night. Not even late. More fully awake now, Jax remembers what led to this atypical twilight nap.        

She’d been getting the family dinner ready. Her till death do they part-ner and two teenage kids vegged nearby, fondly stroking their true transitory partners—the latest apps. While stewing and stirring farmer’s market produce into soup, Jax became overwhelmed with exhaustion. Not the most intense exercise but it had already been a depleting day.

First off: a barrage of incoming texts from her east coast editor: The Gray Spot – how to make silver-hair sexy in six easy steps – apparently to be quickly written by her – was shoving aside her long fought-for six-part series on equal aging rights for women. Her editor chose to read Jax’s “Well, the ERA was also squashed . . .” as an acquiescing sign-off. 

Next challenge: daring to rouse her serially tardy for school seventeen-year-old daughter and fourteen-year-old son. Them moaning in outraged unison, “Mommmmm—uh, seriously?” Her husband piling on, “No offense, Jax, (offense wildly taken) you should have picked up on their age-appropriate need for minor risk-taking.” Still, as she watched them stumble, mumble out into the world for the day, she couldn’t help feeling that what she really should have done is remind them (again) it might rain. Even though four out of five weather apps waged ten percent. 

Less sunny possibilities permeated her mid-day physical, which Jax had desperately wanted to cancel except she’d already broken one of her few rules—only bail on appointments three times. Or else, what? Because let’s face it, doctor visits had become less and less fun, shrouded by not-thrilling percentages about illness-prone genetics and her recent bouts of exhaustion. During today’s appointment which refused to end, ‘concerning’ blood test results loomed. 

Until Jax literally ran away, defying odds like the downpour outside. Her parting 

words: “Sorry, I have this deadline.” True. The reception door slammed on her backside. “Well, alrighty then, bravo, heavy door,” Jax muttered. “At least you fight back when you’re pushed around, unlike the doormats in front of you.” 

One of which would be her. Except not anymore, she vowed, wading through the achromatic afternoon. Recalling how in the dry desert of her youth, immaculate rainbows had shone down on wildflowers.

By the time Jax awakens from her sunset crash to the remains of homemade soup, her attitude has caught fire. Her family has obviously waited for her to turn off the stove, yet not to eat. Also not to wonder why Jax, for the first time in their lives together, is not there for them.

Her kids—who analyze the whys and what-if’s of every micro-swipe—seem equally incapable of digging into a shred of wtf behind her having retreated to her bedroom. As their roles have always played out, she is supposed to appear when needed. Their father might have decided that, more than wondered why, she’d imbibed too much vino. A fastidiously fair courtroom judge and forever pothead, he never tires of twisting evidence to prove that cannabis is indeed the most righteous inebriant of all.

Jax, on the other hand, knows what mothers, wives, girlfriends intuit—we women fill in cracks, yet are also the foundation, glue. Clearly the invisible kind, one that only can withstand so much until we, too, crack. And so, Jax uprises in the dusk. She exits her bedroom, totters before her nearest and dearest. Feeling her essential stature exposed and unseen, she waits for someone, anyone to mention her unusual absence. Even an aside about vino, which in this case she wishes were true. Jax waits. And waits. Then, starts across the kitchen toward the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. Theirs, not hers. Mumbles erupt—”Be right there,” “In a minute, ‘kay?” Furthermore, “The world doesn’t always revolve around your OCD need to clean up, Mom.” And, as Jax passes the kitchen sink, “No offense, Jax, but they do have a . . .’

The word “point” is drowned out by the stomping of her feet. Sure, she realizes, child-like, as she used to do after naps, but not necessarily regression. The back door claps affirmation of her exit. Jax imagines her family gaping, open-mouthed. She hears their shocked, indignant refrain: 

“Mommm!”                          “Seriously?”                           “Jax, I really don’t think you should be going . . .”

Mom-Seriously-Jax calls back in, “. . . to see the superbloom? Like I’ve been wanting us all to do . . . forever?!” Her voice echoes. Odd. Raw. Feral. Flowering from cavernous space deep within. Well, hello again, me. Welcome forward to the outside world. Then, calmer, “Any takers?”

Only silence, long a bummer. But tonight, another reminder to stop hanging around for non-responders. Because she can also hear, feel, sense time tick-tocking away. High time to pick up on her own age-appropriate need for major risk-taking. “Got it.” Jax surprises herself some more, flees to her old Prius which, as always, greets her with radio static before she even opens the car door. A wiring glitch, one that at least acknowledges her. Jax’s bare feet (shit, she didn’t even stick on flipflops) push hard on the worn accelerator. Pursued, not by her current family, but by her own interior wiring.

And so, Jax is off to see the wonderful wildflowers of the Inland Empire, once upon her time a real-world Wizard-of-Oz poppy-field playground. Number one on her bucket list—or will be, at least, if she ages enough to write such lists. But probably never again at 10 p.m. on a moonless night in her twenty-year old hybrid that is literally falling apart at the seams. At least its quarter tank of gas will land her somewhere else. No need for GPS. She knows the road to arid homelands.

A radio commercial blasts another erectile dysfunction salve. Not her husband’s issue. Her own issue has long been post-sex lack of emotional intimacy. She flicks more. As a late-night talk show caller shares a top-secret SOS about interplanetary weather wars, Jax’s cell buzzes. Probably spam or dreaded medical test results, but how fantastic if Mars was reaching out. Less thrilling if it’s her worried son, who inherited her anxiety genes. Even at age two, he had fretted about where “Go Sam go!” would end up. She’ll text him when she takes a break and say she’s fine which will not be true in so many ways, including almost driving into a ditch. 

But no catastrophe, microscopic or galactical, can minimize the miracle of sunflowers rising late this year at this exact moment in time as Jax sings to golden oldies. The radio blares Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Well, her too! Jax’s working day is so over, hopefully along with that age-lift puff piece she’s been assigned and the case of the fears she caught from her doctor. It strikes Jax how similar vacating and vacationing feel to her in this moment. 

She spots an older woman alone at a bus stop bench, wrapped in a wavy purple blanket, long grey braids boogying in the desert wind. Jax brakes, rolls down the passenger window. “You okay?” 

“Sure. Waiting for my ride.”

The urban version of Jax knows to not stop for strangers. People turn on you. As does life. Her own steadiest companion—her instinct. She downshifts some more. “They coming soon?” 

“Oh, dear, with arrival and departures, never really know, do ya?” 

Jax parks the car near the bench. Good reason as any for a break. The unruly Prius now acts as sound system for them both, warning of gusty winds. The woman offers to share her lavender-infused blanket. Scents such as this have long warmed Jax’s home, body, slumbers. “Once upon a time, I went as a violet for Halloween.”

The woman’s eyes twinkle. “Beautiful then and now.”

“You, also.”

 “Lines of learning. Like rings on redwood trees. When you get yourself these medals, wear ‘em proud. We women earn ‘em.”

True. Jax’s time-passing trophies shadow more than shine, it sometimes seems in the Los Angeles glare. She has found herself grimacing in random mirrors, then scowling at her vanity. Infuriating that men don’t face comparable age-shaming. Yet in this moment, Jax desperately hopes she will be fortunate enough to earn what she truly sees as living trophies. 

As darkness softens, Jax sits with her lovely new friend. On the bench, then zooming—this car can still rally!—to wild poppies in hued hills. Like themselves, they agree. Grit, lit energy. 

“Blanket flowers,” the woman proclaims. 

They so are.

As the sun beats down, the woman hears more about Jax’s crises, who she really is, than anyone maybe ever. Jax marvels at how tenderly one can connect with others mislabeled ‘strangers.’ She, in turn, listens deeply to her travel-mate.

Even when, despite Jax wanting to press on, the woman points to the highway exit lane. “Here.” 

The only building around is a wooden roadhouse with a ripped cardboard sign, Ladies Nigh and a dangling t. Inside, a long table, a few stools, drunk fools, and a Dolly Parton tune about a coat of many colors her momma made for her. Jax joins in all of it. After more tequila than she’d remembered downing—although who remembers much of anything after all those shots—she improvises her own lyrics. Jax’s mom never made her a coat. Still, every weekday, before heading to her job at the water well, she tipped warm toasted bread onto freshly picked wildflowers for her daughter. And she sure made Jax happy as they braided lavender into necklaces for each other. 

The woman in purple, downing what she calls her 100-proof prickly pear tincture, now sings along, “And she’s waiting for you.”

Who’s waiting, Jax wonders, the mother who perished from polluted well water when her daughter was eight? Is her travel companion’s soulful harmony actually the voice of not exactly doom, but destination? After more tequilas, Jax calls the woman Destiny. 

Barstools are vacated. Destiny, sensuous and yes—sexy!—dances with Jax, and then the whole room. Jax laughs slow motion-like at something suddenly hilarious coming from lips of that really cute guy with cactus-green eyes as they two-step. He holds her like, hey we are an awesome twosome. Puzzle pieces fit together, real tight, solving just about everything. Least for now. Her eyes, overflowing with the fuck-it-all of it all, make room for this new Bucket List Number One.

Alrighty then. Jax sways her two-stepping new partner outside under inebriated desert stars. His lips even more immersive than she’d let herself imagine in all her stowaway fantasies over the arc of her marriage. It had felt disloyal, then. 

And still. Despite her ‘number’s up, get it while you can’ playing out as she and new guy, Lips, kiss and kiss. As in once upon a time with her and her old guy. She and Lips now grind together against a dirty parking lot wall. Hard. Her eyes jolt wide. His remain closed. Jax realizes her sex-induced dizziness comes partly from balancing on a pile of cigarette butts, used condoms, and drunk pints. 

Her travel-mate, Destiny, stretching sensuously with the falling moon, nods. Stay, enjoy, or time to move on? 

In this shaky moment, Jax knows two realities. She wants to stay and go. But staying means missing the nomadic bloom. So, go Jax, go! Goodbye, beautiful guy, maybe for lots of nows. 

She dismounts from trash. “Later.” Could those seductive lips possibly be emitting an enormous belch while staggering back inside? Another delusion deflates. Even so, Jax and Destiny’s shadows inflate in the prism of morning light. 

Destiny flaps her arms wide. “Smashed glass sure births some beauts.”

“Wildflowers, here we come!” Long ago, Jax’s mother fled iced mountains of wishful glassblowers to this illusory land of high sand. As the hybrid gasps, parched altitude vistas morph into her husband’s lips. Jax’s open mouth takes it all, him in. This mirage feels real, almost. 

Instead, a void. Jax’s phone remains silent. Right, she muted it during that longed-for slow dance with Lips. After that, can her wandering eyes glimpse the screen without getting burnt? The sheer quantity of urgent messages sears. Her car vaults the curb. 

Destiny stares straight ahead. “Is hit and run on your bucket list?” 

Beyond mother’s milk succulents and an abandoned mini-mart, people in formal black and white stream from a white building. 

Wouldn’t you fucking know it. She almost crashed into a funeral. Jax jams on the brakes. Well, fuck it. When her time is up, she wants music by Dolly P, Queen Bey, Lady B. And dancing along with wildflowers. 

Multi-colored lilies now float. Tossed by a glowing woman emerging from the building, draped in white. 

 Oh, a wedding! Jax has envisioned her children committing to partners at some point in some way. Jax and Sam had united, bare feet on beach sand. But whatever her daughter—who delights in defying expectations—and son end up wanting or not will be fine. What Jax cares about is raising them secure, free. Both kids had tried to crawl back up inside her at various times. Jax imagines rather than remembers her own childhood mess of a motherless self, then as a new mom without one. What if she, forever after, is not there for them to reach for?

This runaway mom reaches for the iridescent bouquet. Her travel-mate sneezes. “Bless you,” Jax means it. How awesome to orbit with this woman who answers to Destiny, not Chance. And who at least reminds her of her mother. 

“Three sneezes in a row means . . .”

 Jax joins in, “… bloom time.” She wonders if sneezing could be contagious, like smiling or yawning. Encouraging others to relate.

“So you really do come from these parts.”

“Once upon a time.”

“The way I see it, once upon a time falls right about now.” 

Jax’s gaze roams desert peaks not so far away anymore. Her path homeward. Upcountry. 

Destiny shares her 100-proof tincture. Jax swigs big, coughs most of it up. “Sorry.” 

Destiny snorts. “Vitamin Cactus got quite the kickstart, all right.”

Jax, still coughing, adds, “I’ll say.”

“Yep, prickly pears know a thing or two about surviving in these polluted times. So, how’s that bucket list of yours coming along?” 

“So far, so wild. Breaking free. Fling flung. Itch got scratched. For one night.”

“Why one night?”

“Guess I wanted to remember what forgettable felt like.” 

“Hear that. Maybe it’s ‘cause the world goes round and round that we all do, too. Running away, smack back into our past. Gotta say, I wouldn’t a figured you the planning type.”

“Life did the planning. But I always did want to see those poppies again.” She inhales. “Oh, yeah. We’re definitely near.”

 “Family up there?” 

Depends what you mean by up there. “Uprooted from far away.”

“Mine transplanted closer in. Some even dared to call us the trespassers. Still do.”

“Fuckers.” Jax’s non-driving hand fits Destiny’s. 

“My family couldn’t afford those drive-in theaters they had back then. I’d just watch the sky play tricks.”

“Yeah, desert-vision. Me, I used to wish on wildflowers.” Don’t go, Mama! The damn doctors whispering Cancer. Those gathered in black hissing Riddled! Passing away. As if a hand-off were involved. Like a joint, powdered mirror back in the day. But why was the c-word verboten? Asking that aloud had grounded her with a hard slap. The last time she felt her father’s touch after his first wife passed. Before he outran replays of loss.

Past and present tense jam. 

These days, cancer can be vocalized if not always cured. Her mom’s passing away handed off to Jax, whose date with Destiny rolls. This daughter now upshifts.

“You’re funny.”

Oops, her internal monologue has become external dialogue. Old friend humor, her tincture for pain. Till now, at least. “In a weird sort of way.”

“Suits me just fine. I take my smile where I get it.” The compact veers toward an over-sized truck. “Life, too.” Destiny places Jax’s hand on the steering wheel where it clearly belongs.

“Sorry. Been a long twenty-four hours.” 

Jax’s cell flashes. Does her family understand that she is also breaking through? Could be lack of sleep, but her windshield lights up. Yellow and orange petals pop pop pop to surround sound. The desert gusts in, out, round and round. 

Jax pulls to the side of the road. She and Destiny swoon out together toward the aroma of superbloom.

The parked hybrid chooses this moment to premiere its latest malfunction—broadcasting incoming text missives. First, her doctor’s robo-call. Jax’s palms fly over her ears, as when little. Stop, pretty please! 

Then, her son’s raw vulnerability seeps in. Oh, no! Not that she doesn’t desperately long to hear him. Only that Caller One’s info may have crushed him. Because, yes, more murky medical stats have also broken through. Her finger poises to strike. 

Next up: her editor, whom the vehicle wisely garbles. But husband Sam’s, ‘Hey, you’ (uh-oh, ‘you’ is his rarely spoken love word for her) ‘how’s bout checking in?’ is crystal clear. Wait, does he mention something about the doctor needing a call-back? Oops, already erased—by her, this time. The cell goes mute.

Jax wonders, why no fast-talking track from her daughter? Hopefully, she’s too busy with her latest boyfriend or girlfriend to worry about her mom. Despite feeling taken for granted a short time ago, Jax would now be thrilled for that status quo. Except then, she wouldn’t be in the comforting hands of Destiny, gently leading her away. Or have created a memory to forget and another to remember forever. At least, that’s how being reunited with wildflowers makes her hope. 

 Even though, a nearby guide tells his busload of tourists, “Sooner or later, all poppies pass their time of bloom.”

Destiny flows feral with the flowers. “Trying to root, no matter what, fuckers!”

 Jax joins in, “Non-invasive and still no welcome mat.”

“Blown away”—their belly laughter and sneezes bounce through timeless canyon walls—”Homeland after homeland.”

 “We can clutch, cling, or let ‘er rip.”

“Up up . . .”

“Our way.”

Jax and Destiny know that presenting any other way than deep, textured, weathered, worthy is a waste of invaluable time. They weave each other’s white, brown, black, silver hair with desert marigolds. Orange and yellow playmates sway along. Purple petals join the party. Inclusiveness—the name of their game. They swing into gathering mist.

“Hey, maybe, after we go round and round, we star-hop.” Jax re-imagines her departed mother as a star-shaped wildflower, shining, shading her daughter. If only her mom had kept more for herself. “Self-care for wildflowers.” 

“How I see it, what you’re doing right now.”

Light stems down into the greyness. The space where her travel-mate just stood is now vacant. Has Destiny ditched her? Only that hundred-proof prickly pear tincture remains on the sand, tipped toward Jax. 

And then, a whisper from up ahead: “Onward.” 

Jax squints into mist. Silver-hued faces, etched by life. Destiny? Her mom? Herself? Closer in, cell bells sing. She still has power after all. Jax accepts this call, non-explains 

into her live wireless, “On my way.”

Her husband, even-keeled no more, yells back, “Jax! Oh, Jax. Finally.” Does his voice actually shake? “The doctors need you to touch base—” 

Their eternally polite son interrupts for perhaps the first time ever, “Dad! Let someone else talk for once! Mom!! Which wildflowers? Where are you?” 

Her daughter chimes in. Resonating not like herself, but a lot like Jax in crisis. Calm, soothing. “It’s okay. She’s obviously in that magical poppy land. Don’t you remember when we were little?”

I so do, honey.

  “Mom would lie on our old rag rug and tell stories about healing in her inland empire.” 

“Yeah, and you’d beg her to take us there.”

I so will, sweethearts. 

Brother and sister recite, “Multi-colored friends play away as the day turns grey.” 

Their parents harmonize. “And life seems blue.” 

Jax’s wet eyelids soften. Her lips —a topsy-turvy rainbow smile.

The hybrid sputters through fog: You have reached your destination. 

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Amy Spies is a writer. Her movie is being adapted into a stage musical. Amy judges PEN and WGA writing awards. She teaches her Mindful Writing program at universities and women’s shelters. A graduate of Radcliffe/Harvard University, Amy will be finishing her first novel during her T.S. Eliot House residency.