I love
The Scent of Lilac,
apple blossoms, lily of the valley, and many other sweet-scented flowers. For the past few days when I have spent time on my deck swing breathing in the scent of the lilac that has grown up taller than the deck. It blooms every year and every year I live in gratitude for the scent of lilacs for several fragrance-soaked days.
Down by the garden shed the fragrance of lily of the valley flowers fills the air. And just a week ago the apple blossom scent wafted through the air.
Ah…the fragrance of flowers is such a wonder. It seems that the scents of flowers have no other purpose than to fill our world with beautiful fragrances. But scientists believe that flower aroma is a signal that directs pollinators to a particular flower whose nectar or pollen is the reward. For me the reward is the simple delight I feel when my favorite scented flowers are in bloom.
I measure the year by the scents I find in nature and take particular delight in the fragrances of spring.
I KNOW SOMEONE
I know someone who kisses the way
a flower opens, but more rapidly.
Flowers are sweet. They have
short, beatific lives. They offer
much pleasure. There is
nothing in the world that can be said
against them.
Sad, isn’t it, that all they can kiss
is the air.Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones.
— Mary Oliver
Scent-sual Delight and Memories
I have a very keen sense of smell and delight in many of the scents of nature. But fragrance is also a potent memory trigger.
Fifty years ago I traveled to the island of Cyprus to live with a Greek Cypriot family for a three months, learning about the island and conversing with their four children in English. I was twenty years old.
Each morning as I washed the family’s breakfast dishes I breathed in the scent of a jasmine bush in bloom right outside the kitchen window. That was the first time I consciously remember being totally enchanted with a flower’s fragrance.
Nothing brings to life again a forgotten memory like fragrance.
– Christopher Poindexter
Whenever I notice the scent of jasmine blossoms I feel like I’m back in that Cypriot kitchen washing dishes while delighting in the perfume of the sensual flowers outside the window. After I returned to college at Iowa State University I was missing the family, the culture, and the warmth and sunshine of Cyprus. I felt like I had more culture shock returning to my home than I had experienced in Cyprus.
One cloudy dark day in early winter, I received a box of some of my belongings that the family I lived with had shipped back from Cyprus. When I opened the box it was redolent with spicy scents of Cypriot cooking and little bit of flowery summer scents as well. I didn’t unpack that box for months. Instead I closed it up and stored it in my closet. Every once in awhile when I was missing the family or the sunshine that I had come to love I would open up the box and simply soak up the scent of that place.
Wishing you enjoyment of this season’s scents and sights.
May you walk in beauty.
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