A few weeks ago, I was trapped in a room with a pot of plastic flowers. The room was warm; the air was stale and did not move. The impeachment trial droned from a radio in the corner. One of the house managers was speaking; he kept saying “William Jefferson Clinton,” repeating all three names. Weak afternoon sunlight was filtered through a layer of ice that had condensed on the inside of the storm window. Magazines, dull when new and now outdated, lay strewn on low tables.
Usually, once a glance has told me flowers are plastic, I don’t pay any more attention to the space they occupy. Now I was trapped in a grim room where my most promising companion was a clutch of pink plastic. Which variety of flower was rendered in low-density polyethylene, I am at a loss to say. They seemed to be something more than carnations and less than roses. The leaves were medium green, the shade reminded me of toy soldiers I played with as a child. The half-dozen stems were stuck in a foam block, the kind that dry out and disintegrate in your hands.
Perhaps the only useful purpose the plastic flowers served was to remind me of the potted azalea that sits in the west-facing window at home. It has pink blooms, which fade to white at the edges. Half the petals of each blossom are spattered with vivid scarlet. The very things I find remarkable in the authentic flower – the color, delicacy, the immediacy, the ephemeral nature of the azalea’s bloom – it was the half-hearted echo of these that make the facsimile seem so false, so cloying.
The most obvious feature of the plastic flowers was that they needed dusting. Their color was either faded or had never been true to life in the first place. On the backside of a petal, I could see a seam left by the machine that stamped it. The people who make and sell this flower, the people who buy and display it, don’t seem to care enough to even make a pretense at hiding its fabrication.
The radio in the corner continued to drone. The speaker had changed, now one of the president’s lawyers was rebutting the speech made by the house manager, but the drone was essentially the same, the tone flat and serious, the words heavy in their proclaimed importance.
The winter sun had shifted, it now cast a beam directly on the plastic plant, as if it shared my meditation. Motes of dust drifted in the light, hanging for a moment before settling on the leaves for weeks or months.
I thought of something a friend once said of an in-law’s toupee: “We sit there at Thanksgiving dinner and he’s got this thing on his head and it looks so phony and we’re all supposed to pretend we don’t notice. It’s stupid.”
As I said, that was a few weeks ago. I eventually escaped from that room, and the impeachment trial finally ended. Another long, national nightmare – we were told – was over. Once again the newspaper editorials tell us the system works. But at what cost? The more hot air that pours out of Washington, the more deflated our leaders seem to be. Now we have no chance to catch our breath before the next presidential election cycle begins and the words will drone from the radios once more. The words from Washington in this last year seem hollow and empty, as far removed from the real concerns of Americans as plastic flowers are from real, and we’re all supposed to pretend we don’t notice. It’s stupid.
Plastic Flowers
A few weeks ago, I was trapped in a room with a pot of plastic flowers. The room was warm; the air was stale and did not move. The impeachment trial droned from a radio in the corner. One of the house managers was speaking; he kept saying “William Jefferson Clinton,” repeating all three names. Weak afternoon sunlight was filtered through a layer of ice that had condensed on the inside of the storm window. Magazines, dull when new and now outdated, lay strewn on low tables.
Usually, once a glance has told me flowers are plastic, I don’t pay any more attention to the space they occupy. Now I was trapped in a grim room where my most promising companion was a clutch of pink plastic. Which variety of flower was rendered in low-density polyethylene, I am at a loss to say. They seemed to be something more than carnations and less than roses. The leaves were medium green, the shade reminded me of toy soldiers I played with as a child. The half-dozen stems were stuck in a foam block, the kind that dry out and disintegrate in your hands.
Perhaps the only useful purpose the plastic flowers served was to remind me of the potted azalea that sits in the west-facing window at home. It has pink blooms, which fade to white at the edges. Half the petals of each blossom are spattered with vivid scarlet. The very things I find remarkable in the authentic flower – the color, delicacy, the immediacy, the ephemeral nature of the azalea’s bloom – it was the half-hearted echo of these that make the facsimile seem so false, so cloying.
The most obvious feature of the plastic flowers was that they needed dusting. Their color was either faded or had never been true to life in the first place. On the backside of a petal, I could see a seam left by the machine that stamped it. The people who make and sell this flower, the people who buy and display it, don’t seem to care enough to even make a pretense at hiding its fabrication.
The radio in the corner continued to drone. The speaker had changed, now one of the president’s lawyers was rebutting the speech made by the house manager, but the drone was essentially the same, the tone flat and serious, the words heavy in their proclaimed importance.
The winter sun had shifted, it now cast a beam directly on the plastic plant, as if it shared my meditation. Motes of dust drifted in the light, hanging for a moment before settling on the leaves for weeks or months.
I thought of something a friend once said of an in-law’s toupee: “We sit there at Thanksgiving dinner and he’s got this thing on his head and it looks so phony and we’re all supposed to pretend we don’t notice. It’s stupid.”
As I said, that was a few weeks ago. I eventually escaped from that room, and the impeachment trial finally ended. Another long, national nightmare – we were told – was over. Once again the newspaper editorials tell us the system works. But at what cost? The more hot air that pours out of Washington, the more deflated our leaders seem to be. Now we have no chance to catch our breath before the next presidential election cycle begins and the words will drone from the radios once more. The words from Washington in this last year seem hollow and empty, as far removed from the real concerns of Americans as plastic flowers are from real, and we’re all supposed to pretend we don’t notice. It’s stupid.