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How to Make an Ocean Friendly Wreath — Fourth Quarter Begins pg281
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
Come spring, Catherine, Blair and I talked about an ash-scattering ceremony, hiring a boat and arranging the flowers and music. Armloads of roses and lilies would be blooming in my garden in April. I Google-searched ‘ocean friendly funeral wreaths’, and found that florists use a thick circle of vines for the base. That’s fine for the environment, but certainly not propeller-friendly should an unlucky skipper run over it.
Anise grows invasively in the Carquinez hills, and during a walk with Faun I took a good look at the tall, dried stalks. They were strong and filled with what looked to be a hard, crumbly foam. Perfect! I picked ten about an inch diameter, cut them to three foot lengths, laid them into a couple of five pointed stars, then drilled and pegged every intersection with twigs — a floating base that would harm nothing. Bouquets of flowers were easy to attach with raffia. Joan’s favorites were calla lilies, and over two-dozen were blooming from bulbs she had given me long ago. White and yellow Japanese iris grew thick along the fence, so her wreath was glorious. My father’s…
