Dearest friend,
I find myself obsessed with flowers of late, capturing them any way possible - painting has turned to photography (although my efforts are rather more clumsy in this arena).
An overflowing bubble bath cascading to the ground. Roadside swathes of white froth line the way, whether on road or off. If daffodils are the rockstars of March then cow parsley is the botanical Hollywood starlet on Oscars night of May and June. Something about the mere sight of it brings a deep rooted joy that is hard to explain. My younger years were spent with family in gardens and on river banks. I can only imagine that traipsing through vast fields of the stuff has left a permanent etching on my soul like the indentation left behind after a flower has been taken out of a press.
Summer days filled with the heat of consistent and dependable sunshine. The scent of pollen brought alive by heat and a soft breeze dancing together, colluding to make a subtle yet heady scent. Cow parsley sits there simple, quiet, effortless and timeless, introverted, shy with an air of knowing, the visual soundtrack to summer. The silent guide to adventures in grey and green, for it spills equally on to stone paths as green fields and has started to find its ways into the crevices that long for life in cities too.
Tiny and infinite in their number, the flowers on a head of cow parsley are like a galaxy of stars with unfathomable possibilities bound up in their being. The promise of long days and short but warm nights. Of sandalled strolls along dirt tracks and through fields. Of conversations walking along canal paths. Of al fresco lunches in cities and parks. They are a promise of good things to come. Soul filling days nourished by the sun and boundless in their capacity for love and adventures.
To some they are annoying roadside vegetation, to me they are the watchful gatekeepers of the good times.
I haven’t noticed who they pass the baton to as their season ends. I suspect I will wind up too caught up in enjoying long and hot days (or else cursing an abrupt and all too early end to them as it pours with rain daily) to notice. In the garden it is the time of summer fruits. A constant of harvest / eat / preserve / repeat until their season draws to a close and perhaps that is why I’m unsure of what lines the roadside. The garden becomes a full time endeavour for a brief number of months, the extra child in the family (but one that needs constant attention, in contrast to the sloth like teen figures seen residing on the sofa more often than not). As I write this to you I know I must make more of an effort to pay attention. Before we know it October will be knocking on the door with its nights closing in and pumpkin everything and that, my friend, is just a slippery slope to Christmas and the dead of winter.
So for now I shall finish up, put down the pen and get out to see what life there is beyond the garden walls.
I hope you are having a magical summer and that stories and adventures are unfolding themselves at your feet.
Until next time, sending love and hopes of good times still to come.
With love,
V.V
This is beautifully and vividly written - you have a wonderfully engaging and descriptive writing style. And thank you for the reminder to notice what is right in front of us - as you say, it is all too easy to get lost in the hurry of life and miss all the beauty in the day to day.
Oh, I love this, and I love cow parsley too. As someone who has begun a mid-life love affair with gardening one of my big questions is how cow parsley grows in such joyful, easy abundance in the wild, but is so difficult to get in a garden. Last year I planted ammi as a subsitute, but it was tricky and unpredictable (perhaps more a reflection on me than it.) I want borders of lacy white froth like sea foam! (But until that happens, you've inspired me to get out and just enjoy it in the wild...)