A Memory In Fragrance

Day 240: At four years of age, I could often be found sitting on the steps outside my grandmother's kitchen door during late May or early June, surrounded by the rich scent arising from her flowerbeds on either side of the stoop. It was a shady niche, cool when the front yard temperature was on the rise, moist in a way which defied being called humid.

The porch looked out onto a sunnier alleyway where the Hollyhocks grew, and I loved them well, yet not so dearly as the Lily-of-the-Valley's delicate bells. The Hollyhocks were faerie-folk in a storybook I loved, their crinkly dresses ready for a promenade. Lily-of-the-Valley was shyer, hiding beneath a small bell-bonnet of white. But it was Lily-of-the-Valley who wore the perfume which filled both dawn and dusk with her aroma.

Lily-of-the-Valley has always been my favorite of flowers. It was the first thing I planted in my garden here: twenty-five pips which spread, as it is wont to do, until it covers a bed four by twelve feet. I thin it from time to time, and give the excess of bulbs to friends. This year, I threw them by handsful into the woods adjacent to the lawn where I hope they will happily multiply. For now, I sit on my front step o' mornings and evenings, and bathe in their fragrance with thoughts of my grandmother's kitchen porch.