I want to be able to stop and smell the roses. Okay, I know it’s a cliché, but in this particular case, I mean it literally. I want to walk into my dining room, stand in front of a majestic display of blood-red roses, bend down and sniff their aroma until my lungs are swimming in it. While driving with a friend around town, I decided I would allow myself to do just that. I would buy a dozen roses to fill the empty vase that’s been sitting on my dining table for far too long. When I lived in Los Angeles that vase was always full. There was a wonderful flower shop I used to frequent on a weekly basis. When I entered I’d be like a kid in a candy shop, wishing I could have it all. I’d gather an armful of whatever I fancied the most that day and spend the equivalent of the price of a nice meal at the trendiest restaurant in town to take it home. I always had fresh flowers in my sitting room, on my dining table, in the kitchen and in my bedroom. Between the half-dozen or so potted indoor plants and the numerous bouquets of flowers, my place looked like a greenhouse. I enjoyed walking in from a long, emotionally trying day and seeing all of that flora and foliage in my home. It relaxed me. I also enjoyed tending to them, clipping the stems and changing the water. It was part of my daily ritual, as natural to me as brushing my teeth or combing my hair. And I have to say, I’ve missed that ritual greatly since I’ve been in Ghana, so I was excited by the idea of buying those roses. After asking around a few times and being given horribly inaccurate directions which had me and my friend driving all over Accra, we finally happened upon a flower shop somewhere near Dzorwulu. We walked into the shop and spent a little time milling around in search of the flowers — the fresh flowers, that is. Much to our amazement, all we saw were fake flowers, huge plastic wreaths and vibrantly coloured bouquets made out of some synthetic material that is supposed to look and feel like silk. “Where are your fresh flowers?” I asked the shopkeeper. “We are not having any,” she answered. “Right now?” I wanted to know. “Or ever?” She smiled sheepishly and shook her head. “Wait a minute, let me get this straight,” my friend said, hoping to gain some clarity. “This is a flower shop but you don’t sell any flowers? Well, any that are fresh?” “Let’s just go,” I whispered, gently pulling her hand and guiding her toward the exit. After my brief exchange with the shopkeeper, I remembered that I’d encountered pretty much the same situation when I lived in Accra in the mid-2000s. Back then there was only one shop in town that I knew of which carried fresh flowers and they were so overpriced that maintaining a weekly habit of buying them, especially on my university lecturer’s salary, would have surely thrown me into bankruptcy. Fortunately, I was told about a group of young men who sold fresh flowers inexpensively on Sunday mornings near Kotoka airport. It wasn’t a proper shop, it was a vacant car park with a bunch of long-limbed, baby-face guys who looked like they’d just escaped from a boarding school dormitory. They would come with a truckload of buckets, blue and dingy white, each one filled with water and flowers. For all we knew those flowers may very well have come straight from their mothers’ gardens. But what did we care? We’d gather round and choose the ones we wanted: three stems of that, only one of this, a bunch of those. That’s where I used to go every week to buy mine. I called one of my girlfriends who used to accompany me there from time to time to see if those men still came on Sundays. Apparently, they don’t, and though I’m sure there must be a place — either a proper shop or another word-of-mouth, off-the-radar sales point — where I can buy moderately-priced fresh flowers, I am yet to find it. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to figure out why every flower shop I’ve been to in Accra — other than the wallet-emptying one, of course — is filled with plastic carnations and faux silk tulips. I mean, what’s the fascination with the fake flowers? And they are all over the place, too: in restaurants, offices, and people’s homes. My friend Ama recently told me she’d heard of a posh spa—a spa, for crying out loud — that was filled with fake flowers! Admittedly, some of the fake flowers I’ve seen look surprisingly real, with tiny plastic drops splattered along the petals to resemble dew. Most of them, however, are unimpressive and unconvincing, all battered and frayed at the edges of the petals. Worse, many are laced with layers of dust, as though even their owners got tired of keeping up the pretence. I can’t speak for anybody else, but the reason I love flowers so much is because of their beauty. When I look at flowers I am reminded of the wonders of nature. They are, for me, the perfect symbols of life’s fragility and its grand possibilities. When I watch a flower transition from closed bud to full bloom, I am reminded that we are all, God’s creations, a part of that cycle. I know that soon, its petals will begin to wither and, one by one, fall away. Some flowers refuse to bloom. They remain in the bouquet, tightly closed, rejecting the call to reveal their splendour. Those are the ones that die sooner, their constricted petals withering inward, closing them up even more. That, too, is a powerful reminder of our individual calls to greatness; it is a reminder that those of us who stay closed and tight, unwilling to expand and explore our possibilities, will never bloom, will never open to our full potential. We will not display all the God-given beauty within us for the world to see, to experience, and admire. We will remain forever closed; but even that cannot protect us from the inevitable. We will still wither; we will still die. Fake flowers remain suspended in whatever state they were created, be it a completely closed bud, a partially open appearance, or a full breathtaking bloom. There is something about this deception that I find grossly offensive, especially in a place like Ghana where nature is always alive and announcing its vitality. If we were living in, say, Greenland or Alaska, I might understand the attraction to fake flowers and the desire to capture a bit of nature at its most fecund. But Ghana? An equatorial country that is rich with rainforests, with so many varieties of flora and fauna? I simply don’t get it. Maybe I’m missing the point entirely. Maybe it’s precisely because we’re surrounded by so many varieties of flora and fauna that people here feel they don’t need to bring it into their homes. But should the fact that you have beauty outside, all around you, stop you from transporting and nurturing the same sort of beauty within? Maybe…I don’t know. All I know is that I’m still in search of a fragrant bouquet of roses that won’t require me to sell my silver or dip into my daughter’s tuition account. But as long as they’re not fake I’d settle for sunflowers or orchids or celosias as well, so you’d better watch your well-manicured gardens because I am a woman on a mission (with a pair of dangerously sharp shears)! This article is copyrighted creative property, NOT fair use material. All rights reserved. This article may NOT be republished or reposted without permission of the author. “The View From Here,” a weekly column by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, is published every Friday in the Daily Graphic. The author, who is currently accepting registrations for a private writing workshop, can be reached at outloud@danquah.com