Floral Arrangements Made Easy (FAME) 2.0 Workshop was offered for the first time on Sat 26 Sept (the 1st day of the Spring school holidays). This was a response to many requests from participants who had attended FAME 1.0 workshop.
The feedback from FAME 2.0 was overwhelmingly positive — and yes, the flowers were beautiful! However, there is an additional layer to this workshop that goes beyond floral arrangements.
A fellow mental health advocate from a Thai background attended with her teenage son. It reminded me of something I have observed over the years at Community Flower Studio (CFS): sometimes young people come into our space because a parent or a friend opens the door for them. I have had many friends ask whether their sons or daughters could volunteer with CFS. My response has always been:
“That’s great! Ask them to shoot me an email and tell me how they would like to be involved.”
It’s a simple question — but it also leaves the young person to take the next step. Perhaps it filters out those who are only coming because their parents told them so!
Thus, it was lovely to see this young man attending FAME 2.0 with his mum. At least he was curious enough to come along and find out more. And speaking of teenagers…
There were two pairs of friends, all teenagers, attended this workshop. As I later learnt that one mother found out about the workshop on social media and told the other mother. They respectively bought the youth concession tickets ($15) for their daughters.
One of the girls gave me a very honest “zero” when I asked how easy or difficult she found the first arrangement! I clarified that my question asked the level of difficulty not how much you like the workshop!
I have to admit, I would probably have said similar thing if I wasn’t particularly interested in flower arranging and my mother had said:
“You MUST go! Too bad — I’ve already paid for the workshop!”
But here is the funny part.
After the workshop and over afternoon tea, I caught up with a CFS member who happened to sit to this “zero” girl during the workshop. I was told that the teenager was actually very keen to come over and collect her flower stems and greenery from me. And once she returned to her table, she took her time arranging her posy.
So perhaps there was a little conversation going on inside her:
The rebellious self: “NO! I ‘ZERO’ want to do this!”
The creative self: “Hmm… but this looks interesting. Let’s give it a go!”
That observation reminded me why I value the ‘total creative freedom’ CFS has created for the young people to choose, explore and discover their own interests.
Sometimes an adult opens the door.
Sometimes a young person walks through reluctantly.
And sometimes, somewhere between “NO!” and “let me have a go…”, curiosity takes over.
Flowers may be the invitation. What happens next is up to them.
There may be another reason why I found this little “zero” story so amusing. Perhaps I was projecting a little of my teenage self onto her. I was once that rebellious teenager too. Like many Chinese parents of my generation, my parents wanted me to study medicine and become a doctor. I chose a different pathway. But I eventually found my own rather cheeky way of making my mother proud:
“Your daughter did receive a PhD (Dr) from the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW — specialising in Medical Anthropology — to keep the doctors honest!”
Perhaps that is why I have such a soft spot for young people who don’t necessarily follow the pathway their parents have imagined for them. They may say “NO” to one thing, while quietly saying “YES” to something else. Our job may simply be to create the space for them to discover what that “YES” might be.
