ROSE WOMAN
work in progress
CHAPTER 1: THE GARDEN GATE
Snow White and Rose Red
You don’t need to know the fairy tale to follow the thread in this book. If you do, great; either way, we’re going to pick it apart until it lies flittered on the floor of a dainty little cottage in the forest. The story begins, funny enough, in a dainty little cottage at the edge of the forest, where once a ‘poor widow’ lived with her daughters, Snow White and Rose Red. The woman grew two rose bushes, a white and a red, and every day she cut one rose from each bush and gave them to her daughters, which they wore in their hair.
That’s it. That’s all the fleshing out the woman gets – apart from some dubious parenting concerning the girls running around the forest at all hours, sometimes not coming home at all, but sleeping on a bed of moss somewhere. She never worried about them because she believed them to be safe. More on that so-called sanctity later.
Snow White was fair haired and gentle-mannered. Rose Red was dark haired and wild as the woodlands. What colour was the mother’s hair? Never a mention, only the insinuation that she’s old, probably beyond caring about her looks, needing help in the house and having Snow White read to her in the evenings. This woman, let’s not forget, clearly has green fingers, for she has two year-round-blooming and healthy rose bushes in her garden. I see her at the garden gate, nothing better to do than wave her children off into the perils of the forest every day. What kind of a mother would do that? And yet, because I have two daughters, nick-named Snow White and Rose Red (sometimes a less romantic ‘Chalk and Cheese’ or occasionally Yin and Yang), I see myself as this woman, a modern day, younger and far more beautiful than is suggested ‘widow’ – although in my case, while I am married you could say I’m a golf-widow, so still a widow of sorts I suppose.
My Snow White is the noisier one however; she must fill the air with singing or laughing or any sound at all, just to keep the silence at bay. She’s a joy, a hugger, a comedienne; she’s a breath of fresh air, she’s sharp as a pin, she could run the world if she had a mind to. Stay at home, yes, but help around it? Not so much (or at least, not so much as Snow White in the fairy tale, who sat at home with her mother, and helped with the housework and read to her when there was nothing to do.) Nothing to do! Wouldn’t that be nice? I won’t say she doesn’t help me around the house. There was that time I finally unboxed the carpet cleaner after almost a year, and she deciphered the instruction manual for me. Sentence by sentence we went through it, stopping for a good laugh at the suggestion we should use our rubber nubs where we encountered a stubborn stain. Blonde haired, glint in the eye, fun-filled and ready to dance at the drop of a beat, she loves a good musical, is fond of people and makes them laugh. She doesn’t read to me, but she does force me to watch funny TikToks every so often, and I feel this is her way of being kind to a grateful old lady.
As the sun sets on that image, let’s enter into the dead of night; a time of likely Zombie apocalypses, dungeons and dragons, piercings and tattoos. My Rose Red is quiet, but with a wicked laugh and she would step over a dead body to protect a beetle, or any living creature outside of Homo Sapiens. Her hair is dark, and sometimes pink or blue or streaked with white gold. She lives in the garden, and when she lets herself in to my home, its almost as if a wild fawn has approached the house, making eye-contact only if absolutely necessary – and usually because she needs an ingredient for some baking project or magical concoction. She’s comfortable with silence and the unspoken closeness of a moment in time. She says ‘I love you’ in a myriad of ways. She’s a protector of the underdog, a hero for wildlife. She is principled and honest. Like her mother, you’ll have her attention until you don’t. By day her head is in the clouds. By night she's gaming. She tells me without pity to get on with my writing, it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.
In any case, since they’ve always been my Snow White and Rose Red, I some years ago planted a red and a white rose bush, one either side of steps leading to a pathway, and a prime spot for the dog to pee, poo and generally hurdle over. Do you see why I admire this old woman of the forest’s gardening prowess? I know it’s not easy. I’ve only got a Whippet to contend with; she must have had all sorts of woodland pests wandering in through the picket fence, curious to chew the bark or whatever else it is that pests do. I’m determined, before I lose my daughters to handsome princes, to get this right; I’m going to start again – choose a better plot, feed the soil, grow something that reminds me of them when they’re gone. It seems I’m the crone (albeit a hottie-crone) and my daughters are my life.
A red rose to ground me, remind me of terracotta earth, where the worms and the insects work the soil; around roots secure and strong. What is the life cycle of a rose bush? How many generations of rooted, older women will this plant delight, even long after I’m gone?
A white rose with whispers of a song in the air, pure and crisp like snow, bringing comfort and joy; a signal of clean slates, seeing and being seen with fresh eyes, every day a new dawn and a nudge, a reminder of what it feels like to grow something and see it thrive: there’s power in that thought.
Rooted, Older, Seen, Empowered. I am a ROSE Woman now. But I’m not done growing. Some might say the growth is only just beginning.
I’m standing at the garden gate, waving to you. Come grow with me.
CHAPTER 2
The Woman Without a Name
work in progress
CHAPTER 1: THE GARDEN GATE
Snow White and Rose Red
You don’t need to know the fairy tale to follow the thread in this book. If you do, great; either way, we’re going to pick it apart until it lies flittered on the floor of a dainty little cottage in the forest. The story begins, funny enough, in a dainty little cottage at the edge of the forest, where once a ‘poor widow’ lived with her daughters, Snow White and Rose Red. The woman grew two rose bushes, a white and a red, and every day she cut one rose from each bush and gave them to her daughters, which they wore in their hair.
That’s it. That’s all the fleshing out the woman gets – apart from some dubious parenting concerning the girls running around the forest at all hours, sometimes not coming home at all, but sleeping on a bed of moss somewhere. She never worried about them because she believed them to be safe. More on that so-called sanctity later.
Snow White was fair haired and gentle-mannered. Rose Red was dark haired and wild as the woodlands. What colour was the mother’s hair? Never a mention, only the insinuation that she’s old, probably beyond caring about her looks, needing help in the house and having Snow White read to her in the evenings. This woman, let’s not forget, clearly has green fingers, for she has two year-round-blooming and healthy rose bushes in her garden. I see her at the garden gate, nothing better to do than wave her children off into the perils of the forest every day. What kind of a mother would do that? And yet, because I have two daughters, nick-named Snow White and Rose Red (sometimes a less romantic ‘Chalk and Cheese’ or occasionally Yin and Yang), I see myself as this woman, a modern day, younger and far more beautiful than is suggested ‘widow’ – although in my case, while I am married you could say I’m a golf-widow, so still a widow of sorts I suppose.
My Snow White is the noisier one however; she must fill the air with singing or laughing or any sound at all, just to keep the silence at bay. She’s a joy, a hugger, a comedienne; she’s a breath of fresh air, she’s sharp as a pin, she could run the world if she had a mind to. Stay at home, yes, but help around it? Not so much (or at least, not so much as Snow White in the fairy tale, who sat at home with her mother, and helped with the housework and read to her when there was nothing to do.) Nothing to do! Wouldn’t that be nice? I won’t say she doesn’t help me around the house. There was that time I finally unboxed the carpet cleaner after almost a year, and she deciphered the instruction manual for me. Sentence by sentence we went through it, stopping for a good laugh at the suggestion we should use our rubber nubs where we encountered a stubborn stain. Blonde haired, glint in the eye, fun-filled and ready to dance at the drop of a beat, she loves a good musical, is fond of people and makes them laugh. She doesn’t read to me, but she does force me to watch funny TikToks every so often, and I feel this is her way of being kind to a grateful old lady.
As the sun sets on that image, let’s enter into the dead of night; a time of likely Zombie apocalypses, dungeons and dragons, piercings and tattoos. My Rose Red is quiet, but with a wicked laugh and she would step over a dead body to protect a beetle, or any living creature outside of Homo Sapiens. Her hair is dark, and sometimes pink or blue or streaked with white gold. She lives in the garden, and when she lets herself in to my home, its almost as if a wild fawn has approached the house, making eye-contact only if absolutely necessary – and usually because she needs an ingredient for some baking project or magical concoction. She’s comfortable with silence and the unspoken closeness of a moment in time. She says ‘I love you’ in a myriad of ways. She’s a protector of the underdog, a hero for wildlife. She is principled and honest. Like her mother, you’ll have her attention until you don’t. By day her head is in the clouds. By night she's gaming. She tells me without pity to get on with my writing, it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.
In any case, since they’ve always been my Snow White and Rose Red, I some years ago planted a red and a white rose bush, one either side of steps leading to a pathway, and a prime spot for the dog to pee, poo and generally hurdle over. Do you see why I admire this old woman of the forest’s gardening prowess? I know it’s not easy. I’ve only got a Whippet to contend with; she must have had all sorts of woodland pests wandering in through the picket fence, curious to chew the bark or whatever else it is that pests do. I’m determined, before I lose my daughters to handsome princes, to get this right; I’m going to start again – choose a better plot, feed the soil, grow something that reminds me of them when they’re gone. It seems I’m the crone (albeit a hottie-crone) and my daughters are my life.
A red rose to ground me, remind me of terracotta earth, where the worms and the insects work the soil; around roots secure and strong. What is the life cycle of a rose bush? How many generations of rooted, older women will this plant delight, even long after I’m gone?
A white rose with whispers of a song in the air, pure and crisp like snow, bringing comfort and joy; a signal of clean slates, seeing and being seen with fresh eyes, every day a new dawn and a nudge, a reminder of what it feels like to grow something and see it thrive: there’s power in that thought.
Rooted, Older, Seen, Empowered. I am a ROSE Woman now. But I’m not done growing. Some might say the growth is only just beginning.
I’m standing at the garden gate, waving to you. Come grow with me.
CHAPTER 2
The Woman Without a Name
