He knocked quietly on the door, hoping I wouldn’t be home yet.

I answered.

“I got you flowers, and chocolate.”

I was speechless, like I always am when he romances me. I kissed him, and  put the chocolate on the back shelf of a kitchen cupboard for my own safety.

“Do we have a tall, narrow vase?”

I knit my eyebrows together, mental inventory. The short green one, the really narrow one that wouldn’t keep it’s balance…

“No.”

He grinned with an idea. I returned to washing dishes while he arranged the mountain sunflowers in something. I turned around;

His everyday not-roses were tucked into a mountain-lover’s be-stickered Nalgene water bottle.

I love this.

I love that they are different. The creative expression of love. The sunshine captured on our kitchen table. I love that they are vibrant and messy, and unabashedly, wildly reaching their crinkled petals in every direction.

I love this simple ordinary love that we keep in our regular old, favorite container. I love this bright mountain flower tucked into a used, loved bottle that seen its share of real life (so why not its share of romance, too?)