ABIGAIL’S LOVE LETTER TO PRIMROSE
Dearest Primrose,
I have potted your seedlings from nine different eBay and Amazon sellers over the years. I have potted you every summer in Bognor Regis with my family, all of whom have had a rewarding time looking after you. I have travelled with you in the back of my friend’s barely functioning transit van– and left you in car parks, university building, technical cupboards, studios, storerooms and garden patios. I have ‘charmed’ security guards and broken windows for you. I have made make-shift hose pipes in my desperation to feed you. I have relocated slugs and killed greenfly to protect you. I have carried and lifted you through fields and lifts, been up and down stairs, in and out of buildings to move you from sun to shade - too many times to count. I have wept uncontrollably with exhaustion - with the thought you were dying of thirst. At times I have lost all dignity and hope - and have had to be consoled.
I have brought experts together, across many professions and departments to work for you. I have been called the woman with an ‘unhealthy obsession’ and unashamedly introduced you as my creative partner to Rufus Norris.
I have force fed you Miracle-Gro in order to …’JUST COME ON AND SAY SOMETHING!’. I have lost patience with you. I have forsaken you. I have squashed your delicate little head into the palm of my hands to try and understand you. I have injected UV dye into your veins in order to expose your insides. I have cut you and bathed you in jars of oil in order to preserve you. I have invited friends and colleagues over to sit with you and to pass the time (and aid existential chit chat). I have gotten drunk with you.
I have done all of this just to get to know you better. To spend quality time with you - to experience time with you - through you. And I have done this because
when I see you move at dusk I witness real magic; I witness birth and death and all times rolled up into one. I witness beauty and sadness, struggle and tension, and intervals of life.
And I emerge connected, changed and hopeful
…and so I will continue to wait for you once again, my love,
anon,
A
2014