Lily of the Valley

I love Lily of the Valley.  I'm not quite sure why.  I remember as a young child wandering out to the shed behind our house.  The shed was full of gardening tools, and the lawn mower, and it was dark and smelled of damp earth, and to a four year old was kind of scary.  But outside of the shed there was a beautiful patch of lily of the valley, surrounding it, continuing on, running long the old wire fence line.  There was something magical and mysterious about them.  So tiny and delicate, yet such a sweet and powerful fragrance.

I believe my mom had quite an affection for them.  Maybe even wearing lily of the valley perfume.

I took this photo when I was on retreat a few weeks ago.  I want to enlarge it for Olive's room.  Her room has kind of a whimsical feel, and to me that is Lily of the Valley.  So I was sitting with my dad in his hospital room last week and was showing him some of the pictures on my computer.  We came to this one.    I was much relieved when he commented that it reminded him of the flowers by the shed behind our house in Pennsylvania.  Most of my memories from that house are vague.  We moved from their when I was five.  So I've always kind of questioned my memories, and wondered if this romantic vision of flowers by the shed was just made up.  Or if it was rooted in reality.  Maybe thats why these flowers hold a special place in my heart.  Isn't it true that somehow things from our childhood seem sweeter, more full of color, and scent and flavor?  Most of my childhood memories contain a smell or taste or vibrant color that I long to experience again.  And there was that fleeting sense of it the day I snapped this picture.  Somehow these small flowers hundreds of miles away from my childhood home, transported me back in time, for just a second, to a place where I was small and curious and delighted in the precious bloom hid among the deep cool green leaves by my shed.