As a teenager, at the time of dial-up internet and IRC, I would sometimes fall in love with strangers on IRC chat rooms. In an incongruity of real and digital life, pages and pages of love letters were written, then scanned, and sent as jpgs. Never sent as physical mail though—the digital romance not encroaching into the physical. Once again into my twenties, a teen-like love spurred me to scan and email love notes I had written (thankfully on my own scanner this time because the awkwardness of staring into the eyes of the scanning man as a young adult would be palpable,)

Much of the allure of flowers for me is that they are an act of love, there is an incredible tenderness in the gesture of giving, and receiving, flowers. An unwritten love letter, shared via scans once more.