Chinese Lanterns, Mimosa and Bulgakov

Sunday afternoon I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up a few more items for dinner. Pausing by the flower section, I thought a fall bouquet would make the dinner table and the living room in general so much more festive. I was about to pick up a bunch of red and yellow dalias when I noticed the dried Chinese lanterns. Bright orange and paper-thin, the little domes hung on branches with fire red berries hidden inside. These could bright up my living room all winter. I bought two bunches.

As I walked home adorned by the bright orange plants I thought of Bulgakov’s “childless thirty-year-old” Margarita, “carrying repulsive, alarming yellow flowers in her hand. …And these flowers stood out clearly against her black spring coat. What did this woman need, …this witch with a slight cast in one eye, who had adorned herself with mimosa that time in the spring?”