The Scissors in My Glovebox

I keep scissors in the glovebox of my car. They have black and orange rubber ergonomic handles with short, four-inch blades. And only once did they get me into trouble.

I am an artist who loves to paint flowers—oil on linen. You might wonder, what does that have to do with scissors in a glovebox? Or you might not think keeping scissors in a glovebox unique, as they do come in handy for a number of reasons. But those scissors are my essential scissors because I cut wild flowers all spring and summer along dusty country roads, lonely interstate shoulders and abandoned fields. My scissors need to be handy when I happen upon wild yarrow, Queen Anne’s lace, daisies, dandelions gone to seed and other flowering weeds that make a beautiful painting when paired with antique vases and copper pots.

But on a few occasions, and this is how I got into hot water, I find hydrangea bushes or peony shrubs neglected and heavy with flowers begging for relief from the weight of those blooms. I have once or twice, while in line for drive-through food or filling my tank at the local pony keg, relieved a bush or two from their burden. It’s nice that proprietors want to dress up the place, but those shrubs, drooping with blooms, lying on the ground ready to mold, I trim for their own good, take the flowers home, remove dead petals, and arrange them into vases in my studio for still life paintings.

Yes, people do stare when I cut them; I don’t blame them because it’s not every day you see someone cutting flowers from a plant in a public area. One Thursday morning I was in the drive-through on my way to paint with a friend, and a large peony bush, parched and laden with droopy flowers, begging for water, called to me for relief. I had nearly two full bottles of spring water in the car, so I grabbed my trusty black and orange from the glovebox. I quickly jumped out of my car, watered its roots and cut the blooms already on the ground, when from behind me I heard a woman yelling for me to stop cutting the flowers, and she made a big fuss by honking her horn. She yelled, “Get back in your car!” So I did, right after I finished cutting off the last grounded flower. She was clearly in a hurry for her egg and sausage muffin. Still, I was embarrassed so I reported myself to the drive-through cashier and asked her if I should leave the flowers with her. She told me to keep them as the grounds service had not shown up for a week. When the woman in line behind me approached the cashier, I could hear her talking about the thief in the car in front of her. The cashier told her the same thing she had told to me.

I have been known to knock on the doors of strangers who cultivate flowers or leafy things near the road, to ask if I might cut a few stems that I’m willing to pay for. I show photos stored in my phone of some of my paintings, and most of the time they are thrilled with the idea of their flowers living forever on canvas. I leave them my business card with a promise to return to show them the painting. Painting for me is more a creative outlet than a profession. Yes, I sell my work, but I’ve given away as many paintings as I have sold—it would be impossible to store all the paintings I create in a year. During the first ten weeks of Covid-19, I painted fourteen canvases.

But I don’t need to depend on the random chance of finding free flowers. I have six lilac trees growing in my yard, ten peony bushes, four hydrangeas, four magnolia trees, tall grasses and beautiful leafy varieties like hostas and painted fern that lend their gorgeous fronds for filler in my arrangements. Purchased cut flowers often surrender their petals and their lives within just two days, sending me back to the garden store for more flowers and fillers in order to complete my painting. I’m thrilled to have a yard full of my own!

I am single but rarely am I sad or lonely as I have many creative outlets, most of them requiring scissors. Covid-19 was less painful for me than it was for so many others because of my flowers, my easel and my paint. When I am not painting, I experiment with gourmet cooking, study the French language or read, but mostly I write. I have scissors at the ready in every room: I cut articles, recipes and I cut pictures from magazines that give me ideas for interesting paintings or color combinations. I cut and paste paragraphs the old-fashioned way during manuscript revision, and I endlessly cut scrap paper from previous drafts of those manuscripts.

But in the end, the scissors in my glovebox—the ergonomic, black and orange with four-inch blades—I cannot be without.