March 12, 2011
Scents and Sensibility

I can't stop clicking photos of the lilac painted rose blooms. I'm not trying to capture how they look, although with their delicate petals open to perfection they certainly are breathtaking. But it is their perfume that's intoxicating. I think I'm trying to preserve this delicate sweet scent on film with each click, hoping that I'll find a way to take this scent home with me.

And I'm not one that fawns over roses.

In fact, generally speaking, I hate them. Okay, hate is too strong. Let's just say I powerfully dislike them. I've been hacking away at my two climbing roses for the last three years, butchering them back nearly to the ground each spring, secretly hoping they might not make it. But this hacking only encourages them to send out stronger, thornier vines that wind and tangle their way around the air conditioning unit, up the brick of our home, scratching at our window screens, crowding out other nearby blooms.

I didn't plant them. Would never choose roses for myself. Too girly. Too showy. Too predictable. I never really liked their smell, at least not the rose scented perfumes that crowd out all other senses when you walk through the cosmetics section of any department store. Its imitation smells sickly sweet. But not these roses in front of me.

Blooms in every shade of pink, crimson, and ivory fill this long corridor of a room. They are overwhelming. Petals unfurled in blooms nearly as large as my hand, and a smell so sweetly delicate, so clean, honest.


Too girly.
Too showy.
I'm not one to fall over flowers.
Rose perfumes too sickly sweet.
But these blooms blush
every variation of baby pink,
innocence and crimson.
Petals unfurl in blooms as
large as my palm
and share with me a
secret, sweetly delicate,
so clean and honest.

I have dropped my journal in the garden. These pages flecked with soil, water sends my ink scurrying toward the edges of the page. I think this is an appropriate look for my journal. It has touched the ground that has nurtured these blooms, which have nurtured my reflections. My journal pages have come full circle, a perfect reflection of my time spent in the gardens.