Keeping our chins up

Virus spawns creative new connections

- LESLIE LANDRIGAN

STONINGTON—Marley and Bella Jones thought they’d cheer up their grandmother sheltering in place with their grandfather during the COVID-19 pandemic. So on March 27, their mom, Deandra Jones, drove them to the Harbor View store, where each twin plucked a long-stem carnation from a bucket outside the door. Fairwinds Florist had put them there—and outside their own front door in Blue Hill—after they received a large shipment of flowers.

“Why carnations?” read the sign above the bucket. “We often hear that they last a month or more. Let these beauties lift our spirits and remind us as they age that this too shall pass.”