Daphne’s Reprise
Currently Google searching regional flowering shrubbery that blooms in the Spring and smells like waking up from a depression. It smells like how it felt to be a child when I would wander through the grass and sample the edible plants. The wild sage is good this year, the lovage too. Sometimes I’d pick a leaf here and another there and role them up together- herb burrito. I remember it so fondly. I was a happy child for a good amount of time, until what changed? I’m not sure. I’d walk home from school in the Spring, pick a cluster of flowers off the bush and breathe in the scent. I’d crush it and roll it, rubbing the oils on my arms and in my hair. It would be humid and tangy and heavenly.
I found it, the plant is called Daphne, or Aureomarginata Rosea. Maybe I will name my daughter Daphne. I need to keep my baby names a secret as I’ve lost one now. Beautiful, sweet Georgia, I can’t name you Georgia anymore and it breaks my heart. Georgia is just a symbol now, for a life I imagined that could never be. I was going to be like that happy kid again. I was going to forget and rise from the ashes into an idyllic, isolated life. I hadn’t grown up or made sense of things either. This is no way to be a mother.
The smell of Daphne flowers serves a similar role in my life as a reprise. It recenters the story, brings back a familiar sweetness into an uncertain scene. It catches step with me on a lonely street on a hot evening, it’s an old friend. It reminds me of that one theme that I need to grab hold of to allow the chapter to end. Sometimes it’s happy, usually it’s sad and happy. That’s how I feel, sad and happy at once.
I sat on the back porch today in the early afternoon. It was familiar for the smell of the wood, and then something else. I’d seen it before, but not since the buds appeared. A Daphne bush, in my own back yard. It must not have been blooming when I moved in. I imagined all the places around the yard I would lie on a blanket once the weather got warm. Daphne flowers, a blanket on the grass, bright colors and heat. Maybe even a cold drink. That thought will keep me going for a good while longer.