Lavender Flower Quotes

Meanwhile, spring came, and with it the outpourings of Nature. The hills were soon splashed with wild flowers; the grass became an altogether new and richer shade of green; and the air became scented with fresh and surprising smells -- of jasmine, honeysuckle, and lavender.

She didn’t care if he brought her flowers. Or even an apology. She just needed him to be there. She needed him because that was the only thing that made sense.

Here's flowers for you; hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold.

Lavender lilies all dotted with spots. Sun-yellow daffodils clustered in pots. Blue morning-glories climb trellises high. Powder-white asters like stars in the sky. Thick, pink peonies unfold in the sun. Winter adieu now that spring has begun.

He domesticated and developed the native wild flowers. He had one hill-side solidly clad with that low-growing purple verbena which mats over the hills of New Mexico. It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun; all the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose colour and is yet not lavender; the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple—the true Episcopal colour and countless variations of it.

We owned a garden on a hill, We planted rose and daffodil, Flowers that English poets sing, And hoped for glory in the Spring. We planted yellow hollyhocks, And humble sweetly-smelling stocks, And columbine for carnival, And dreamt of Summer's festival. And Autumn not to be outdone As heiress of the summer sun, Should doubly wreathe her tawny head With poppies and with creepers red. We waited then for all to grow, We planted wallflowers in a row. And lavender and borage blue, - Alas! we waited, I and you, But love was all that ever grew.

Gabe was unusually tall, so he had to be careful where he stood, for if he blocked the sun, his shadow could cause flowers to wither and old women to send their grandchildren inside to fetch their sweaters. Because of his height, many thought Gabe to be much older than he was. This was both a blessing and a curse.

Go & tell your drinking buddies & psychoanalyst your neighbor has risen from the ashes. I wonder if I should tell you about the love letters hidden behind the doorjamb. This house still stands among my lavender flowers. Tell your inheritors to think of me when they smile up at the sky.

Lavender used to be my favorite color in the box of sixty-four crayons - you know, the one with the sharpener built into the side...It seemed like it could draw anything. It was the right color for everything. I drew lavender flowers and my father's lavender eyes, my mother's lavender smile. They were the same to me, mother, father, flowers. All good. All lavender. And I was lavender, too.

I take my metal canister of tea off the shelf. It is my own mixture of dried lavender blossoms and lemon balm, harvested from my garden and hung in the storeroom to dry. Weed helped me hang these stalks, I think. His hands touched these tender leaves, just as they touch me.

They say she's a girl like a garden, it said. "All roses and lavender and spider mums. Too bright, too bright to be there. One foot among the dead, one foot among the living, like a little breathing bridge. Oh, how I'd love to see her. What a pretty, pretty sight she must be.

We drove back through the valley, down to Ventura Boulevard, and over the hills to Hollywood and then west to the Château Marmont, waiting like Tangiers for strangers to find happiness. The land of self-enchantment had, once more, upheld its end of the deal—to be there for those willing to stay. By then, the jacaranda flowers had all fallen and squashed onto the streets in sticky mush, no longer turning the town lavender with clouds, but still they’d be there again next May and so would I.

All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine . . . she remembered the advertisement. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers....

If there’s an eighth wonder of the world, I would suggest lavender. Not only is it beautiful to the eye and heavenly to the nose, it also is said to have antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties and research suggests it may be useful in treating anxiety, insomnia, and depression. And it’s a wonderful addition to—ta-da—COOKIES! Mom always kept a large wooden wine barrel filled with lavender next to the back porch so she could grab a handful of lavender flowers whenever the mood struck her. She made lavender sachets to hang in the closets and added lavender to her rose potpourri. We regularly had lavender lemonade or lavender muffins and often some lavender flowers were identifiable in a lamb stew or as a garnish for steaks. All part of our Mediterranean lifestyle.

When they reached her she stood on the path holding a pair of moths. Her eyes were wide with excitement , her cheeks pink, her red lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them clung a pair of delicate blue-green moths, with white bodies, and touches of lavender and straw colour. All about her lay flower-brocaded grasses, behind a deep green background of the forest, while the sun slowly sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair. Mrs. Comstock heard a sharp breath behind her. Oh, what a picture!" Exulted Ammon over sher shoulder. "She is absolutely and altogether lovely! Id give a small fortune for that faithfully set on canvas!

Rachael could see the lavender fields from where they sat at the kitchen table. They stretched in a purple haze over the landscape, the bright sunshine washing over them. The mauve complimented the blue-grey of the Australian bush in the far distance.

Still, the flowers were growing right along with them, miniature roses and hydrangea, lavender and peonies, magenta and red and pink and purple flowers. And not just in the garden, but all around, the orchard was bursting with green, and smells, and birds singing until long after dark.

There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy--it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.

She woke from dreamless rest to find her lap filled with wildflowers-blue and gold violets, white starworts with bright yellow centers, wild geraniums, purple heather, pale lavender bellflowers, creamy butterworts...a treasure trove of nature's jewels. "Where did these come from?" she asked her warrior husband. He leaned back on his elbows and studied the sea. "Some trolls came by and left them." "Trolls picking flowers?" "More believable, surely, than me doing it?" She laughed and surprised him by competently weaving the summer's late blossoms into a garland for her hair. "How is it you know how to do that," he asked, "when you are so thoroughly undomestic?" She threw a purple aster at him and laughed again. "I thought I was managing to conceal that." "Oh,certainly.

I still dream in pictures and color, always the world of my childhood. I see the purple Judas trees at Easter lighting up the roadsides and terraces of the town. Ochre cliffs made of cinnamon powder. Autumn clouds rolling along the ground of the hills, and the patchwork of wet oak leaves on the grass. The shape of a rose petal. And my parents' faces, which will never grow any older. "But it is strange how scent brings it all back too. I only have to smell certain aromas, and I am back in a certain place with a certain feeling." The comforting past smelled of heliotrope and cherry and sweet almond biscuits: close-up smells, flowers you had to put your nose to as the sight faded from your eyes. The scents of that childhood past had already begun to slip away: Maman's apron with blotches of game stew; linen pressed with faded lavender; the sheep in the barn. The present, or what had so very recently been the present, was orange blossom infused with hope.

He domesticated and developed the native wild flowers. He had one hill-side solidly clad with that low-growing purple verbena which mats over the hills of New Mexico. It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun; all the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose colour and is yet not lavender; the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple--the true Episcopal colour and countless variations of it.

Outside the hospital, a young girl who was selling small bouquets of daffodils, their green stems tied with lavender ribbons. I watched as my mother bought out the girl's whole stock. Nurse Eliot, who remembered my mother from eight years ago volunteered to help her when she saw her comng down the hall, her arms full of flowers. She rounded up extra water pitchers from a supply closet and together, she and my mother filled them with water and placed the flowers around my father's room while he slept. Nurse Eliot thought that if loss could be used as a measure of beauty in a woman, my mother had grown even more beautiful. (The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold)

Guy kept his eyes on her. "I brought you some flowers." He held a bouquet wrapped in florist paper behind him, as if uncertain about offering it. Ivy smiled and stood up, holding out her hands. "Oh!" She looked from the roses to Guy, tears stinging her eyes. "They're lavender." "I did the wrong thing," Guy said, quickly pulling them away. Ivy reached for the flowers, her hands catching and holding his. "No! No, they're perfect." She looked into his eyes. "How did you know that--that I love lavender roses?" He shrugged. "They just seemed right for you.

...the reality of late summer and early autumn when Adelaide, more than any place on earth, and as simply as pouring tea from a pot, pours fourth from a lavish cornucopia into gardens and parks and markets and arcade stalls a cascade of carnations and grapes and melons, guavas and Michaelmas daisies and tomatoes, zinnias and belladonna lilies and tuberoses, lavender and quinces and cumquats and pomegranates, roses and roses and roses.

As spring comes with thick pink blooms, daffodil openings and lavender lilies, the earth starts singing a song of awakening, and from the depths of despair comes the landscape of colors and hope for spring rain falls on the grounds at last. The earth is reborn with smiling blossoms and you believe in something called second chances.

God gave me a vision of all the women around me as different types of flowers He has created. He showed me how boring the world would be if every flower (or woman) looked the same. He also showed me a small, delicate, lavender flower next to a full bodied peony. Lavender flowers are beautiful in their own way, and so are peonies. Why compare them at all?

The largest dahlia in her mother’s collection was called the Dauntless, a bright red flower shaped like a pom-pom and the size of a dinner plate.

Sometimes I look up and imagine the falling of stars, Lotus flowers and blue five branched bars, Towers that crumble under the weight of the sky, Pillars way up high that come apart, Just a glance and one wish for a restart, Sand swirling around the world, the underside, The deep blue abyss from afar, The bubble that encapsulates the solar heart, A landscape filled with craters, undermined, The slow descent to a tectonic mars, One of soft piano, and a bright just as blue life-giving scar, The wide eyes of every lavender petal, frozen in time, Every name is forgotten, even those once heard before, The sound of the distant past trusting the future, A world where everything was paused, limelight, A time where it was you, yourself, and the dark, When the silence was dead and so is everything in the floor.

I was running, as fast as I could, carrying you, Carnation, shaking and scared ... She was there, waiting for me. Standing surrounded by a meadow of lavender, her arms opened wide for me to run into and cry and cry ...

There, now, father, you won't work in it till it's all easy," said Eppie, "and you and me can mark out the beds, and make holes and plant the roots. It'll be a deal livelier at the Stone-pits when we've got some flowers, for I always think the flowers can see us and know what we're talking about. And I'll have a bit o' rosemary, and bergamot, and thyme, because they're so sweet-smelling; but there's no lavender only in the gentlefolks' gardens, I think.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

Have you forgotten me? by Nancy B. Brewer The bricks I laid or the stitches I sewed. I was the one that made the quilt; a drop of blood still shows from my needle prick. Your wedding day in lace and satin, in a dress once worn by me. I loaned your newborn baby my christening gown, a hint of lavender still preserved. Do you know our cause, the battles we won and the battles we lost? When our soldiers marched home did you shout hooray! Or shed a tear for the fallen sons. What of the fields we plowed, the cotton, the tobacco and the okra, too. There was always room at my table for one more, Fried chicken, apple pie, biscuits and sweet ice tea. A time or two you may have heard our stories politely told. Some of us are famous, recorded on the pages of history. Still, most of us left this world without glory or acknowledgment. We were the first to walk the streets you now call home, Perhaps you have visited my grave and flowers left, but did you hear me cry out to you? Listen, my child, to the voices of your ancestors. Take pride in our accomplishments; find your strength in our suffering. For WE are not just voices in the wind, WE are a living part of YOU!

Vivi and Heather take them out for bubble tea. There are no actual bubbles. Instead, he is served toothsome balls soaked in a sweet, milky tea. Vivi orders grass jelly, and Heather gets a lavender drink that is the colour of the flowers and just as fragrant. Cardan is fascinated and insists on having a sip of each. Then he eats a bite of the half-dozen types of dumplings they order- mushroom, cabbage and pork, cilantro and beef, hot-oil chicken dumplings that numb his tongue, then creamy custard to cool it, along with sweet red bean that sticks to his teeth. Heather glares at Cardan as though he bit the head off a sprite in the middle of a banquet. 'You can't eat some of a dumpling and put it back,' Oak insists. 'That's revolting.' Cardan considers villainy takes many forms, and he is good at all of them. Jude stabs the remainder of the bean bun with a single chopstick, popping it into her mouth and chewing with obvious satisfaction. 'Gooh,' she gets out when she notices the others looking at her. Vivi laughs and orders more dumplings.

You are looking beautiful’ Dhiren said. Vasundhra looked fresh like a morning flower in a casually draped Lavender chanderi sari. Her long, wet hair left open, just a pin holding them back from falling on her lovely face. ‘A true Himalayan flower’ Dhiren had thought.

For anxiety and the uncalm spirit, for a peaceful sleepe without evil dreames. Make an infusion of hoppes, skullcap, vervain, valerian, wild lettuce and passion flower. To these can be added lavender, lemon balm and chamomile to sweeten the potion and to infuse the air with calming sweetness.

Spring has come with little prelude, like turning a rocky corner into a valley, and gardens and borders have blossomed suddenly lush with daffodils, irises, tulips. Even the derelict houses of Les Marauds are touched with color, but here the ordered gardens have run to rampant eccentricity; a flowering elder growing from the balcony of a house overlooking the water, a roof carpeted with dandelions, violets poking out of a crumbling facade. Once-cultivated plants have reverted to their wild state, small leggy geraniums thrusting between hemlock-umbels, self-seeded poppies scattered at random and bastardized from their original red to orange to palest mauve. A few days' sunshine is enough to coax them from sleep; after the rain they stretch and raise their heads toward the light. Pull out a handful of these supposed weeds, and there are sages and irises, pinks and lavenders, under the docks and ragwort.

At the door to the shop, a bell tinkled, and moments later they seemed to enter the very flowering of lavender. The scent was all around them; it curled and diffused in the air with a sweet warmth and subtlety, then burst with a peppery, musky intensity. The blind girls moved into another room. There they arranged themselves expectantly around a long wooden table, Mme Musset welcomed them, and a cork was pulled with a squeaky pop. "This is pure essence of lavender, grown on the Valensole plateau," said Madame. "It is in a glass bottle I am sending around to the right for you all to smell. Be patient, and you will get your turn." Other scents followed: rose and mimosa and oil of almond. Now that they felt more relaxed, some of the other girls started being silly, pretending to sniff too hard and claiming the liquid leapt up at them. Marthe remained silent and composed, concentrating hard. Then came the various blends: the lavender and rosemary antiseptic, the orange and clove scent for the house in winter, the liqueur with the tang of juniper that made Marthe unexpectedly homesick for her family's farming hamlet over the hills to the west, where as a child she had been able to see brightness and colors and precise shapes of faces and hills and fruits and flowers.

Business was doing well, because all the locals knew that dishes made from the flowers that grew around the apple tree in the Waverley garden could affect the eater in curious ways. The biscuits with lilac jelly, the lavender tea cookies, and the tea cakes made with nasturtium mayonnaise the Ladies Aid ordered for their meetings once a month gave them the ability to keep secrets. The fried dandelion buds over marigold-petal rice, stuffed pumpkin blossoms, and rose-hip soup ensured that your company would notice only the beauty of your home and never the flaws. Anise hyssop honey butter on toast, angelica candy, and cupcakes with crystallized pansies made children thoughtful. Honeysuckle wine served on the Fourth of July gave you the ability to see in the dark. The nutty flavor of the dip made from hyacinth bulbs made you feel moody and think of the past, and the salads made with chicory and mint had you believing that something good was about to happen, whether it was true or not.

MAY IN MINNEAPOLIS IS LILAC TIME. AS IF TO COMPENSATE for the punitive winter, the city explodes with flowers overnight—making it, if only for a week or two, one of the most beautiful places on earth. First there are sunny starbursts of forsythia; then the cherry and dogwood trees burst into life, showering petals everywhere, pink and cream, drifting thick as snow on the sidewalks. But it is the lilacs that truly herald the coming of spring: lavender and white and blue and sometimes a purple deep as grapes, they bloom in the alleys and over backyard fences and in graveyards. Beauty is everywhere, including the most unexpected places. There is no respite from it.

Do you know what the clan says of you, Adaira?” Jack began softly. “They call you our light. Our hope. They claim even the spirits bend a knee when you pass. I’m surprised flowers don’t grow in your footsteps.” That coaxed a slight chuckle from her, but he could still see her melancholy, as if a hundred sorrows weighed her down. “Then I have fooled you all. I fear that I am riddled with flaws, and there is far more shadow than light in me these days.” She met his gaze again. The wind began to blow from the east, cold and dry. Adaira’s hair rose and tangled like a silver net, and Jack could smell the fragrance within its shine. Like lavender and honey. He thought he would like to see those shadows in her. Because he felt his own, brimming in his bones and dancing in solitude for far too long.

He unzipped the nylon case, and inside was a discolored frame that smelled like smoke. A thin layer of soot covered the painting under the glass- a picture of an old manor house. Gothic Victorian. Wisteria climbed the wall near the entrance, the pale-lavender blossoms clinging to the gray stone. The artist had brushed flowers below the windows as well, though those colors had been muted by the smoke damage.

Mahogany shelves lined the counters, stacked with glass bottles and jars, like something from a fairy tale. There were whole, plump roses steeping in honey; purple-stained sugar, thick with lavender, tiny jars of crimson threads, cherries and peaches suspended in syrup as if they had fallen there from the trees. The luxurious scents wrapped around him. 'Butter,' his nose relayed, 'cream, nuts, brandy, chocolate...

It's been over a year since they've visited their son's market. As they walk through the parking lot they take in a number of improvements. Brian admires the raised garden beds made of cedar planks that flank the sides of the lot. There are stalks of tomatoes, staked beans, baskets of green herbs- oregano, lavender, fragrant blades of lemongrass and pointed curry leaf. The planter of baby lettuces has a chalkboard hung from its side: "Just add fork." A wheelbarrow parked by the door is heaped with bright coronas of sunflowers, white daisies, jagged red ginger and birds-of-paradise. Avis feels a leap of pride as they enter the market: the floor of polished bamboo, the sky-blue ceiling, the wooden shelves- like bookshelves in a library. And the smells. Warm, round billows of baking bread, roasting garlic and onions and chicken.

Letters blend to give rise to words  Like colors pave way for the birth of million shades! Evanescence reminisces sepia! Memory takes back to black and white! Music pops hot pink! Dance rocks wine red! Marvelous is miraculous as the indigo! Magnificent is magnanimous like Russian red! Splendid is classy like arctic blue! Resplendent inspires like  strawberry pink! Flamboyance is flowery like fuchsia! Flawless is perfect like flamingo! Extraordinary stands out like lime yellow! Peculiar is unique like cyan! Pleasant pleases like periwinkle! Soothing soothes like lemonade! Opulent glitters gold! Spectacular shimmers silver! Nice is as mild as dulce de leche! Attractive dazzles onyx! Powerful is headstrong like tangerine! Puissance stupefies like scarlet red! Mellifluence is dissolving, like lavender! Sonorous sounds magenta! Lovely cutely blushes! Sweet is peachy! Richness is wealthy like lush green! Poverty is brown as in flower wilt! Candid is frank as candy red! Altruism is selfless like parmesan! But, BEAUTY IS IRIDESCENT! Which

My mom's Busy Day Cake," Nellie said, lifting the carrier slightly. "With lemon frosting and some violets from the garden I sugared." Her mother had often made the cake for social gatherings, telling Nellie everyone appreciated a simple cake. "It's only when you try to get too fancy do you find trouble," Elsie was fond of saying, letting Nellie lick the buttercream icing from the beaters as she did. Some might consider sugaring flowers "too fancy," but not Elsie Swann- every cake she made carried some sort of beautiful flower or herb from her garden, whether it was candied rose petals or pansies, or fresh mint or lavender sugar. Elsie, a firm believer in the language of flowers, spent much time carefully matching her gifted blooms and plants to their recipients. Gardenia revealed a secret love; white hyacinth, a good choice for those who needed prayers; peony celebrated a happy marriage and home; chamomile provided patience; and a vibrant bunch of fresh basil brought with it good wishes. Violets showcased admiration- something Nellie did not have for the exhausting Kitty Goldman but certainly did for the simple deliciousness of her mother's Busy Day Cake.

favorites from the city, almond croissants and lavender chocolates. And flowers, he always brought flowers. Susannah loved flowers. She said she needed them like air, to breathe. She had more vases than I could count, tall ones and fat ones and glass ones. They were all over the house, flowers in vases in every room. Her favorites were peonies. She kept them on her nightstand in her bedroom, so they were the first thing she saw in the morning. Shells, too. She loved shells. She kept them in hurricane glasses. When she’d come back from a walk on the beach, she’d always come back with a handful of shells.

It was strange. She would have thought that she'd sense John's presence, feel him in the air, see him in the surroundings they'd shared for two years. But instead, he was simply gone, and the influx of women had changed the tone of the house entirely. Francesca supposed that was a good thing; she needed the support of women right now. But it was odd, living among women. There were more flowers now - vases everywhere, it seemed. And there was no longer any lingering smell of John's cheroot, or the sandalwood soap he'd favored. Kilmartin House now smelled of lavender and rose-water, and every whiff of it broke Francesca's heart.

All the flowers were gorgeous, in fact. The ones with “See you in Hell” emblazoned on the sash were white roses, Asiatic lilies, football mums, carnations and blue delphinium, or so Chesterfield told me when I came up to it to get a better look. Another standing spray featured hot pink roses and carnations, orange lilies, yellow sunflowers, lavender stock and green Athos poms, as well as the sentiment of “Not soon enough.” I have to say I was especially taken with the basket arrangement of lavender daisy poms, mums, white roses, snapdragons and Monte Cassino, with the words “Suck it, motherfucker” lovingly engraved onto the base of its gorgeously ornate vase. There were others, but these were a representative sample.

Kami Castillo My Books Browse ▾ Community ▾ All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine . . . she remembered the advertisement. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers....

A leaf, large and rough, a thorny stalk, blue flower. I borage bring courage. Than a saw-toothed leaf. Lemon balm. Soothe all troublesome care. Marigold---cureth the trembling of harte. Perhaps their medicine will cross through the cell walls of my drawing hand. The plants grow into a schematic, a garden, geometrically arranged. I consult the crackly herbals by my bed. Chamomile, catmint, sorrel. In Latin: Matricaria chamomilla, Nepeta X faassenii, Rumex acetosa. I get out of bed, retrieve my colored pencils, come back. The smell of earth fills the room. Root and flower and loam. Decay and regeneration. Mullein and comfrey, costmary, feverfew, betony. I sink into the earth, below verbena and lavender, descending as I draw.

Moving on, while he wondered, the dark through which Mr. Lecky's light cut grew more beautiful with scents. Particles of solid matter so minute, gases so subtle, that they filtered through stopping and sealing, hung on the unstirred air. Drawn in with Mr. Lecky's breath came impalpable dews cooked out of disintegrating coal. Distilled, chemically split and reformed, they ended in flawless simulation of the aromas of gums, the scent of woods and the world's flowers. The chemists who made them could do more than that. Loose on the gloom were perfumes of flowers which might possibly have bloomed but never had, and the strong-smelling saps of trees either lost or not yet evolved. Mixed in the mucus of the pituitary membrane, these volatile essences meant more than synthetic chemistry to Mr. Lecky. Their microscopic slime coated the bushed-out ends of the olfactory nerve; their presence was signaled to the anterior of the brain's temporal lobe. At once, thought waited on them, tossing down from the great storehouse of old images, neglected ideas - sandalwood and roses, musk and lavender. Mr. Lecky stood still, wrung by pangs as insistent and unanswerable as hunger. He was prodded by the unrest of things desired, not had; the surfeit of things had, not desired. More than anything he could see, or words, or sounds, these odors made him stupidly aware of the past. Unable to remember it, whence he was, or where he had previously been, all that was sweet, impermanent and gone came back not spoiled by too much truth or exact memory. Volatile as the perfumes, the past stirred him with longing for what was not - the only beloved beauty which you will have to see but which you may not keep. Mr. Lecky's beam of light went through glass top and side of a counter, displayed bottles of colored liquid - straw, amber, topaz - threw shadows behind their diverse shapes. He had no use for perfume. All the distraction, all the sense of loss and implausible sweetness which he felt was in memory of women. Behind the counter, Mr. Lecky, curious, took out bottles, sniffed them, examined their elaborately varied forms - transparent squares, triangles, cones, flattened ovals. Some were opaque, jet or blue, rough with embedded metals in intricate design. This great and needless decoration of the flasks which contained it was one strange way to express the inexpressible. Another way was tried in the names put on the bottles. Here words ran the suggestive or symbolic gamut of idealized passion, or festive night, of desired caresses, or of abstractions of the painful allure yet farther fetched. Not even in the hopeful, miracle-raving fancy of those who used the perfumes could a bottle of liquid have any actual magic. Since the buyers at the counters must be human beings, nine of every ten were beyond this or other help. Women, young, but unlovely and unloved, women, whatever they had been, now at the end of it and ruined by years or thickened to caricature by fat, ought to be the ones called to mind by perfume. But they were not. Mr. Lecky held the bottle in his hand a long while, aware of the tenth woman.

We came to a clearing and stopped. Dark green vines with oblong leaves and purple flowers in pairs grew everywhere- under our feet, around tree trunks and small shrubs, in a circle at least thirty feet wide. Fat green-eyed insects buzzed lazily around the blossoms. A heavy, luscious fragrance filled the air. "Honeysuckle!" I plucked a couple of flowers and took a moment to appreciate the dark purple petals that faded to lavender and then white at their base. I brought one to my nose and sniffed. My cousins had a vine like this at their house in India. But these blossoms were gargantuan, each one the size of my palm. I pinched off the green cap that held the petals together, pulled on the little string that was exposed, and tasted the small glob of nectar that glistened at the end. My mouth burst with sweetness.

She took me through the parlors and the kitchen, and I marveled at the beautiful ceiling molding, the wooden banisters up to the second floor, the crystalline chandelier in the dining room. The furniture was tasteful and sparse, plastic over the fainting couches and coffee tables and wingback chairs, so that as they stood in stasis they wouldn't collect dust. The second floor was just as gorgeous, the rooms all themed in different flowers. The yellow daffodil room was my favorite. The wall with the headboard had an entire mural of huge daffodils blooming across it. Junie's handiwork, I was sure. Just like the mural on the side of Frank's Auto Shop, and the logo for the Grumpy Possum, and even Gail's bar scene. She showed me all the different rooms, each with a different flower theme and a different focal color--- lavender and coral and sage. The pink ones--- roses--- matched Junie's pastel hair.

Now into the small ceramic pan I grate the block of couverture. Almost at once the scent rises, the dark and loamy scent of bitter chocolate from the block. At this concentration it is slow to melt; the chocolate is very low in fat, and I will have to add butter and cream to the mixture to bring it to truffle consistency. But now it smells of history; of the mountains and forests of South America' of felled wood and spilled sap and campfire smoke. It smells of incense and patchouli; of the black gold of the Maya and the red gold of the Aztec; of stone and dust and of a young girl with flowers in her hair and a cup of pulque in her hand. It is intoxicating; as it melts, the chocolate becomes glossy; steam rises from the copper pan, and the scent grows richer, blossoming into cinnamon and allspice and nutmeg; dark undertones of anise and espresso; brighter notes of vanilla and ginger. Now it is almost melted through. A gentle vapor rises from the pan. Now we have the true Theobroma, the elixir of the gods in volatile form, and in the steam I can almost see- A young girl dancing with the moon. A rabbit follows at her heels. Behind her stands a woman with her head in shadow, so that for a moment she seems to look three ways- But now the steam is getting too thick. The chocolate must be no warmer than forty-six degrees. Too hot, and the chocolate will scorch and streak. Too cool, and it will bloom white and dull. I know by the scent and the level of steam that we are close to the danger point. Take the copper off the heat and stand the ceramic in cold water until the temperature has dropped. Cooling, it acquires a floral scent; of violet and lavender papier poudré. It smells of my grandmother, if I'd had one, and of wedding dresses kept carefully boxed in the attic, and of bouquets under glass.

On Floriography This poem explores the ancient practice of floriography, the coded language of flowers, as a way to express human love through the use of fragrance, colors, and vivid symbolism. By elucidating the phenomenon of florescence alongside the art of floral arrangement, the poem encourages readers to extract poetry and beauty out of a dystopic world. If you often find yourself at a loss for words or don’t know what to say to those you love, just extract poetry out of poverty, this dystopia of civilization rendered fragrant, blossoming onto star-blue fields of loosestrife, heady spools of spike lavender, of edible clover beckoning to say without bruising a jot of dog’s tooth violet, a nib of larkspur notes, or the day’s perfumed reports of indigo in the gloaming— what to say to those whom you love in this world? Use floriography, or as the flower-sellers put it, Say it with flowers. —Indigo, larkspur, star-blue, my dear.

Elsewhere that same day, sleet covered the dead grass outside a modest lavender home in the northern village of Oščadnica like bits of confetti. The piercing wind picked up, keeping afloat a host of identical LSNS flags, green cloth dancing under the murky winter sky. Within the thirty-person crowd, greetings all around. ‘At guard,’ they said to one another, saluting coyly, using a fascist phrase that was popular under Tiso’s rule. The green-clad audience former rows and stood with folded hands over their laps, as local LSNS František Drozd placed a multicolored wreath of flowers at the foot of the home where Tiso once lived. Drozd broke the momentary silence and welcomed the crowd. As the Sunday morning mass concluded across the street, churchgoers poured out of the church. A handful of them—dressed smartly in church digs—joined the procession. A gaggle of police officers stood next to their cars in the adjacent parking lot, rubbing their gloved hands together to stay warm, boredom sketched across their faces.

He opened his hand, and inside was a tiny lavender-colored flower with a small stem. "Well, well, well. Look what we have here. Mr. Exley left us a present. Cichorium intybus. Chicory. The plant of freedom and one of the nine plants. He used it to get out of the basement, and then he left us a cutting as a courtesy. Your Mr. Exley has a good sense of humor." "He's not my Mr. Exley." "Unimportant. This little petal tells us how he got out of here." "He broke a deadbolt with a flower petal?" "In a sense, yes. Cichorium intybus is a perennial related to the dandelion. It's cultivated in England and Ireland and from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to the plains. It is not cultivated here, in South America. He brought it with him!" "For what?" "For its magical properties. The plant has a long, thick taproot filled with a bitter milky-white juice. The ancient Egyptians believed that if the juice is rubbed on the body it promotes invisibility, and removal of obstacles. The Mayans called it the plant of freedom, for the same reason.

Kee Li Tong was one of my favorite chocolatiers in New York. Years earlier, I had a fleeting addiction to her otherworldly crème brûlée truffle, a dainty yet dangerous homemade bonbon that you have to pop into your mouth whole, or suffer the consequences of squirting eggy custard all over your blouse. Now, I discovered, she was handcrafting macarons in wild and wonderful flavors like blood orange, sesame, and rose. How did she create her recipes? What inspired her expanded repertoire? And how did hers compare to Paris's best? Emboldened as I was by my new French history lessons, I asked Kee in her Soho boutique: why macarons? "Because they're so pretty!" Kee laughed. "They're so dainty. I think it's the colors." And, standing as we were above the glass display case, I had to agree. Her blueberry macarons were as bright as the September sky. The lotus flower was the kind of soft pink that's the perfect shade of blush. Kee's favorite flavor, passion fruit, was a snappy corn husk yellow. These were surrounded by greens (lulo and jasmine green tea) and purples (lavender, which was dotted with purple sugar crystals) and some neutral shades as well (white truffle oil and mint mocha).

FROM THE WAVERLEY KITCHEN JOURNAL Angelica - Will shape its meaning to your need, but it is particularly good for calming hyper children at your table. Anise Hyssop - Eases frustration and confusion. Bachelor’s Button - Aids in finding things that were previously hidden. A clarifying flower. Chicory - Conceals bitterness. Gives the eater a sense that all is well. A cloaking flower. Chive Blossom - Ensures you will win an argument. Conveniently, also an antidote for hurt feelings. Dandelion - A stimulant encouraging faithfulness. Frequent side effects are blindness to flaws and spontaneous apologies. Honeysuckle - For seeing in the dark, but only if you use honeysuckle from a brush of vines at least two feet thick. A clarifying flower. Hyacinth Bulb - Causes melancholy and thoughts of past regrets. Use only dried bulbs. A time-travel flower. Lavender - Raises spirits. Prevents bad decisions resulting from fatigue or depression. Lemon Balm - Upon consumption, for a brief period of time the eater will think and feel as he did in his youth. Please note if you have any former hellions at your table before serving. A time-travel flower. Lemon Verbena - Produces a lull in conversation with a mysterious lack of awkwardness. Helpful when you have nervous, overly talkative guests. Lilac - When a certain amount of humility is in order. Gives confidence that humbling yourself to another will not be used against you. Marigold - Causes affection, but sometimes accompanied by jealousy. Nasturtium - Promotes appetite in men. Makes women secretive. Secret sexual liaisons sometimes occur in mixed company. Do not let your guests out of your sight. Pansy - Encourages the eater to give compliments and surprise gifts. Peppermint - A clever method of concealment. When used with other edible flowers, it confuses the eater, thus concealing the true nature of what you are doing. A cloaking flower. Rose Geranium - Produces memories of past good times. Opposite of Hyacinth Bulb. A time-travel flower. Rose Petal - Encourages love. Snapdragon - Wards off the undue influences of others, particularly those with magical sensibilities. Squash and Zucchini Blossoms - Serve when you need to be understood. Clarifying flowers. Tulip - Gives the eater a sense of sexual perfection. A possible side effect is being susceptible to the opinions of others. Violet - A wonderful finish to a meal. Induces calm, brings on happiness, and always assures a good night’s sleep.

Joe had always pretended indifference to flowers. He preferred fruit trees, herbs and vegetables, things to be picked and harvested, stored, dried, pickled, bottled, pulped, made into wine. But there were always flowers in his garden all thee same. Planted as if on an afterthought: dahlias, poppies, lavender, hollyhocks. Roses twined among the tomatoes. Sweet peas among the bean poles. Part of it was camouflage, of course. Part of it a lure for bees. But the truth was that Joe liked flowers, and was reluctant even to pull weeds. Jay would not have seen the rose garden if he had not known where to look. The wall against which the roses had once been trained had been partly knocked down, leaving an irregular section of brick about fifteen feet long. Greenery had shot up it, almost reaching the top, creating a dense thicket in which he hardly recognized the roses themselves. With the shears he clipped a few briars free and revealed a single large red rose almost touching the ground. "Old rose," remarked Joe, peering closer. "Best kind for cookin'. You should try makin' some rose petal jam. Champion." Jay wielded the shears again, pulling the tendrils away from the bush. He could see more rosebuds now, tight and green away from the sun. The scent from the open flower was light and earthy.

Beneath the window, set between gravel walkways, a few woody lavenders, etiolated rosemary bushes, and ornamental thyme made up the aromatherapy garden that he had seen described in the brochure. Beyond this, however, running a long arc down the gentle slope of lawn, camellias in unrestrained bloom provided an alternative tonic. The lawn gave way to a flower garden, itself fringed by a wood, so that the incarcerated had at least the consolation of a pleasant enough outlook. Gabe stood in front of the fireplace and examined the painting that hung above the mantelpiece. It was a still life. It showed two apples and a brown and white feather laid on a velvet cloth on a table placed by a window. Although the picture was not, Gabriel assumed, of the highest artistic value, and was cheap enough to reside at Greenglades, and though it could not be said to have a photographic reality, and though he suspected it of not being "good," he was drawn to look at it and could see the ripeness of the velvet, reckon the bursting crispness of the apples, and the feather had a certain quality that he had never before observed, just as the painted window offered something that he had failed to notice at all when looking through the real one: the texture, the tone, the way the light fell, the very glassness of the glass.

The rapid growth of Message- combined with an outpouring of florists offering consultations in the language of flowers to the streams of brides Marlena and I turned away- caused a subtle but concrete shift in the Bay Area flower industry. Marlena reported that peony, marigold, and lavender lingered in their plastic buckets at the flower market while tulips, lilac, and passionflower sold out before the sun rose. For the first time anyone could remember, jonquil became available long after its natural bloom season had ended. By the end of July, bold brides carried ceramic bowls of strawberries or fragrant clusters of fennel, and no one questioned their aesthetics but rather marveled at the simplicity of their desire. If the trajectory continued, I realized, Message would alter the quantities of anger, grief, and mistrust growing in the earth on a massive scale. Farmers would uproot fields of foxglove to plant yarrow, the soft clusters of pink, yellow, and cream the cure to a broken heart. The prices of sage, ranunculus, and stock would steadily increase. Plum trees would be planted for the sole purpose of harvesting their delicate, clustered blossoms and sunflowers would fall permanently out of fashion, disappearing from flower stands, craft stores, and country kitchens. Thistle would be cleared compulsively from empty lots and overgrown gardens.

I gave them the same advice that had worked for me: Start by stocking your sense memory. Smell everything and attach words to it. Raid your fridge, pantry, medicine cabinet, and spice rack, then quiz yourself on pepper, cardamom, honey, ketchup, pickles, and lavender hand cream. Repeat. Again. Keep going. Sniff flowers and lick rocks. Be like Ann, and introduce odors as you notice them, as you would people entering a room. Also be like Morgan, and look for patterns as you taste, so you can, as he does, “organize small differentiating units into systems.” Master the basics of structure—gauge acid by how you drool, alcohol by its heat, tannin by its dryness, finish by its length, sweetness by its thick softness, body by its weight—and apply it to the wines you try. Actually, apply it to everything you try. Be systematic: Order only Chardonnay for a week and get a feel for its personality, then do the same with Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Franc (the Wine Folly website offers handy CliffsNotes on each one’s flavor profile). Take a moment as you drink to reflect on whether you like it, then think about why. Like Paul Grieco, try to taste the wine for what it is, not what you imagine it should be. Like the Paulée-goers, splurge occasionally. Mix up the everyday bottles with something that’s supposed to be better, and see if you agree. Like Annie, break the rules, do what feels right, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

In the section with edible flowers I stopped short, a bright yellow-and-purple pansy in my hands, hearing my mother's voice from long ago. Pansies are the showgirls of the flower world, but they taste a little grassy, she'd confided to me once as we pulled the weeds in her herb and flower garden. I put a dozen pansies in my cart and moved on to carnations. Carnations are the candy of the flower world, but only the petals. The white base is bitter, she'd instructed, handing me one to try. In my young mind carnations had been in the same category as jelly beans and gumdrops. Treats to enjoy. "Impatiens." I browsed the aisles of Swansons, reading signs aloud. "Marigolds." Marigolds taste a little like citrus, and you can substitute them for saffron. My mother's face swam before my eyes, imparting her kitchen wisdom to little Lolly. It's a poor woman's saffron. Also insects hate them; they're a natural bug deterrent. I placed a dozen yellow-and-orange marigolds into my cart along with a couple different varieties of lavender and some particularly gorgeous begonias I couldn't resist. I had a sudden flash of memory: my mother's hand in her floral gardening glove plucking a tuberous begonia blossom and popping it in her mouth before offering me one. I was four or five years old. It tasted crunchy and sour, a little like a lemon Sour Patch Kid. I liked the flavor and sneaked a begonia flower every time I was in the garden for the rest of the summer.

Anyway, if my lips were rose petals they’d taste too bitter. If my cheeks were apples they’d crawl with apple worms. If my eyes were stars they’d be dead by the time you saw them. If I moved you like the moon I’d disappear once a month. If my teeth were Chiclets you’d want to chew on them and spit them out. If my hands were birds you couldn’t hold them; they’d peck you bloody. Is my skin alabaster? Then it’s cold and hard and one day someone will skin me, make me into a cold hard box tinged with pink or yellow, to hold unguents, then how will you love me? If my vagina is a cool, dark forest you’ll certainly be lost, you have no sense of direction. If my vagina is a cave-watch out! It’s prone to seismic shifts and avalanche. If my vagina is a river of honey: orange, lavender, fine herbs, hazelnut, all too sweet. If my ears are shells I can’t hear you, only the ocean anyway. And if my voice is music, it is unintelligible. Don’t say anything. I am not a flower, but a body with rules and predictable, cellular qualities. My eyelashes and fingernails and skin and spit are organized by proteins designed to erode at a pre-encoded date and time, no matter what you do or do not do to me- I am remarkably like an animal. More like a heifer than a sunrise, I want to bite, stroke, swallow you so stop lying there trying to think of something to say and trying to understand me. I am the body next to but unlike yours. You already know me. You already know what I’m made of.

Tonight Ray will tape the the drenched oasis inside of the silver bowl that sits on the top of the candelabra and fill it with the pale green hydrangeas, pink English garden roses, lilies of the valley, and extravagant lavender sweet peas that R.L., the local florist/antique dealer, delivered a few hours ago. The flowers are all soaking in their respective sugar water jugs in her kitchen- out of the direct sunlight, of course- as is the oasis which she'll mold into every bowl and vase in the house with a similar arrangement. She's even going to make an arrangement in a flat sweetgrass basket to hang on the front door and a round little pomander of pale green hydrangea with a sheer white ribbon for Little Hilda to hold as she greets the guests in the foyer. Ray is tempted to snip the last blossoms of gardenias growing secretly behind Cousin Willy's shed. In her estimation they are the quintessential wedding flower, with their intoxicating fragrance and their delicate cream petals surrounded by those dark, waxy leaves. She bought the seedlings when R.L. and the gals weren't looking at the Southern Gardener's Convention in Atlanta four years ago, and no one has any idea she's been growing them. Sometimes she worries that the fragrance will give her away, but they bloom the same time as the confederate jasmine, which grows along the lattice work of the shed, and she can always blame the thick smell on them. It would take a truly trained nose to pick the gardenias out, and Ray possesses the trained nose of the bunch.

She started to head out, but she passed her room. It was the same as she'd left it: a pile of cushions by her bed for Little Brother to sleep on, a stack of poetry and famous literature on her desk that she was supposed to study to become a "model bride," and the lavender shawl and silk robes she'd worn the day before she left home. The jade comb Mulan had left in exchange for the conscription notice caught her eye; it now rested in front of her mirror. Mulan's gaze lingered on the comb, on its green teeth and the pearl-colored flower nestled on its shoulder. She wanted to hold it, to put it in her hair and show her family- to show everyone- she was worthy. After all, her surname, Fa, meant flower. She needed to show them that she had bloomed to be worthy of her family name. But no one was here, and she didn't want to face her reflection. Who knew what it would show, especially in Diyu? She isn't a boy, her mother had told her father once. She shouldn't be riding horses and letting her hair loose. The neighbors will talk. She won't find a good husband- Let her, Fa Zhou had consoled his wife. When she leaves this household as a bride, she'll no longer be able to do these things. Mulan hadn't understood what he meant then. She hadn't understood the significance of what it meant for her to be the only girl in the village who skipped learning ribbon dances to ride Khan through the village rice fields, who chased after chickens and helped herd the cows instead of learning the zither or practicing her painting, who was allowed to have opinions- at all. She'd taken the freedom of her childhood for granted. When she turned fourteen, everything changed. I know this will be a hard change to make, Fa Li had told her, but it's for your own good. Men want a girl who is quiet and demure, polite and poised- not someone who speaks out of turn and runs wild about the garden. A girl who can't make a good match won't bring honor to the family. And worse yet, she'll have nothing: not respect, or money of her own, or a home. She'd touched Mulan's cheek with a resigned sigh. I don't want that fate for you, Mulan. Every morning for a year, her mother tied a rod of bamboo to Mulan's spine to remind her to stand straight, stuffed her mouth with persimmon seeds to remind her to speak softly, and helped Mulan practice wearing heeled shoes by tying ribbons to her feet and guiding her along the garden. Oh, how she'd wanted to please her mother, and especially her father. She hadn't wanted to let them down. But maybe she hadn't tried enough. For despite Fa Li's careful preparation, she had failed the Matchmaker's exam. The look of hopefulness on her father's face that day- the thought that she'd disappointed him still haunted her. Then fate had taken its turn, and Mulan had thrown everything away to become a soldier. To learn how to punch and kick and hold a sword and shield, to shoot arrows and run and yell. To save her country, and bring honor home to her family. How much she had wanted them to be proud of her.

But…but that’s tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?” He laughed. “Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr’s halo. It’s not as though I’m blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we’ve discussed. And as for beauty…I don’t need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they’re uncommonly lovely.” “No one has lavender eyes.” “Don’t they?” His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, “Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don’t they call it the iris?” Sophia nodded. “The iris.” He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. “An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent.” She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. “But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…” She gave him a sharp look. He snapped his fingers. “There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning.” Sophia felt a hot blush spreading from her bosom to her throat. He smiled and reclined in his chair. “I don’t need to know the color of your hair to see that it’s smooth and shiny as silk. I don’t need to know whether it’s yellow or orange or red to spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how it would feel brushing against my bare skin.” Opening his book to the marked page, he continued, “And don’t get me started on your lips, sweet. If I endeavored to discover the precise shade of red or pink or violet they are, I might never muster the concentration for anything else.” He turned a leaf of his book, then fell silent. Sophia stared at her canvas. Her pulse pounded in her ears. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, channeling down between her shoulder blades, and a hot, itchy longing pooled at the cleft of her legs. Drat him. He’d known she was taunting him with her stories. And now he sat there in an attitude of near-boredom, making love to her with his teasing, colorless words in a blatant attempt to fluster her. It was as though they were playing a game of cards, and he’d just raised the stakes. Sophia smiled. She always won at cards. “Balderdash,” she said calmly. He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. “No one has violet lips.” “Don’t they?” She laid aside her palette and crossed her arms on the table. “The slope of your nose is quite distinctive.” His lips quirked in a lopsided grin. “Really.” “Yes.” She leaned forward, allowing her bosom to spill against her stacked arms. His gaze dipped, but quickly returned to hers. “The way you have that little bump at the ridge…It’s proving quite a challenge.” “Is that so?” He bent his head and studied his book. Sophie stared at him, waiting one…two…three beats before he raised his hand to rub the bridge of his nose. Quite satisfactory progress, that. Definite beginnings of fluster.

Gene had already cleared the soil, or had someone do it for him, who knows, and brought in a load of plants and flowers, which were sitting around in their pots. The colors were all over the place, no great scheme there, but he'd gone for scent in a big way. I only recognized a few of the flowers, but they all smelled wonderful. Lisa ticked them off for me, her mouth full of pepperoni. "Jasmine, freesia, lavender, sweet peas, alyssum, night-scented stock, scented phlox, clematis of course, and some fancy tuberose." She looked over at Gene. "You picked well. These should give her fragrance for most of the year, in turns. And some nice evening scents, too.

I believe as Henry David Thoreau that it is good to live in each season. For they pass one into the next and back around again as we pass by not noticing the simple unfolding of a flower's bud. Should we take but a moment to breathe the air scented with lavender, or to drink it in and taste its fruit, we would be drawn to the very earth we walk on, grounded in life, and lifted in spirit.

Often, as right now, Jean Perdu sits in the farmhouse’s summer kitchen, eyes closed, plucking rosemary and lavender flowers, breathing in this most profoundly provincial fragrance, and writing his Great Encyclopedia of Small Emotions: A Guide for Booksellers, Lovers, and other Literary Pharmacists. He is making an entry under “K.” Kitchen solace—the feeling that a delicious meal is simmering on the kitchen stove, misting up the windows, and that at any moment your lover will sit down to dinner with you and, between mouthfuls, gaze happily into your eyes. (Also known as living.)

We'd hardly stepped three feet outside when Bee gasped, pointing to the garden to our right. "Henry!" she exclaimed, surveying hundreds of delicate light green leaves that had pushed up from the soil in grand formation, showcasing a carpet of tiny lavender-colored flowers, with dark purple centers. Bee looked astonished. "How did they... where did they come from?" Henry shook his head. "I noticed them two weeks ago. They just appeared." Bee turned to me, and upon seeing my confused face, she offered an explanation. "They're wood violets," she said. "I haven't seen them on the island since..." "They're very rare," Henry said, filling the void that Bee had left when her voice trailed off. "You can't plant them, for they won't grow. They have to choose you." Bee's eyes met Henry's, and she smiled, a gentle, forgiving smile. It warmed me to see it. "Evelyn has a theory about these flowers," she said, pausing as if to pull a dusty memory off a shelf in her mind, handling it with great care. "Yes," she said, the memory in plain view. "She used to say they grow where they are needed, that they signal healing, and hope. It's ridiculous, isn't it, Henry, to think that violets can know," Bee continued. Henry nodded. "Harebrained," he said in agreement. Bee shook her head in disbelief. "And to see them in bloom, in March of all months..." Henry nodded. "I know." Neither took their eyes off the petals before them, so fragile, yet in great numbers stalwart and determined.

There’s rosemary; that’s for remembrance. I’m quoting Shakespeare; you’ll read him in high school. And there’s columbine, desertion; holly, foresight; lavender, mistrust.

We walked to a row of three stones: our grandmother and grandfather and, between them, our mother. There were crocuses and daffodils and snowdrops blooming on my mother's grave. Gran had always carefully tended it. After Sunday dinners, when we were little, Gran would put on her wide-brimmed gardening hat and gloves and take along her basket of garden tools and bring us down here. She would plant lavender petunias and purple bearded irises. She would deadhead the spent daylilies and pull up weeds on my mother's grave and on my great-grandmother Beulah's grave back in the corner. She barely touched my grandfather's grave, scratched in some monkey grass and ivy and told us even that was too good for him.

My mother I associated with the softer, smoother flavors of the desserts she made, and with the landscape of our farmhouse--- especially with the garden she loved, the pink and lavender candy-land of geraniums, peonies, and sweet peas.

Black-Eyed Susans, Cosmos, Globe Amaranth, Phlox, Daylilies, and Shasta Daisies Daylilies, Taro, Coneflower, Black-Eyed Susan, Yarrow, and Lavender Global Thistle, Silver Sage, Columbine, and Bee Balm Tulips, Daffodils, Hosta, Grape Hyacinth, and Asters

The word lavender comes from the Latin lavare to wash and the word to launder derives from these sweet smelling flowers. Lavender grows all over Europe and as it was cheap and readily available it was used widely when washing clothing.

Sea-foam tumbles onto the shore, claiming me gently in the way I've always craved. The ocean gathers me, carrying me over the surface like Cleopatra--- and I, every ounce as lovely as her and Aphrodite combined. Bit by bit the water swallows me, gently nipping at my skin until I dissolve into an aquatic spirit. Only then do I understand the language of angelfish and squid, and I move just as languidly. The sirens gape at me with their jewel-bright eyes and try to steal me as their own. But before I can be taken by those curious witches, I rise to the surface again. Everything glimmers here. I embrace the dusk with a hopeful smile. The sky blends into a watercolor of pastels and ambrosial stars. It's an aurora borealis of magenta and lavender, tempting me into the forest and away from the safety of the shore. Something's in the wind. I can feel it--- like the twinkling stars will finally lead me to the love I desire. I want it more than anything. The thought of it turns me feral, like a vampiress thirsty for a drop of blood. I dart through the forest, trailing a path of golden light. Past the evergreens and pines, underneath the moon, I become wild and free. Sweet summer fruit grows from trees, ripe and sparkling. With every cautious step I take, the flowers blossom. But they don't just grow. They glow. Ultraviolet irises, sugar-dusted peonies, and iridescent rosebuds unravel beneath my feet. Foxgloves bloom like trumpets, playing a regal procession beside twinkling bluebells. As I journey deeper into the forest, fireflies circle me, illuminating my path. And then I see him. I blink. He's awfully familiar, but I can't place my finger on who he is. He's beautiful. A boy with white-blond hair and viridescent eyes. Where have I seen him before? "Hello, Lila," he says. I stumble back. "How do you know my name?" He's peculiar. So unbelievably enchanting. I'm enthralled by the sound of his voice alone. "Don't be scared. You're safe here. I wanted to bring you somewhere special. Somewhere where you can make the forest beautiful with your dance." My dance. Of course, my dance. Witchlight flickers in his eyes. This world is meant for me. A gift wrapped up in velvet petals and sweet perfumes.

Almonds Allspice, dried Amla berries, dried Apples Artichokes Asparagus Bay leaves, dried Basil, dried Black beans Black chokeberries Black elderberries Black pepper, dried Blackberries Black tea Blueberries Broccoli Capers Caraway seeds, dried Cayenne pepper, dried Celery leaves, dried Cherries Chives, dried Chili, dried Cinnamon bark, dried Clove, dried Cocoa powder Coffee beans Cumin, dried Curry powder Dandelion leaves, dried Dark chocolate Dill, fresh or dried Fennel leaves, dried Fennel seeds, dried Ginger, fresh or dried Green mint, dried Green olives, with stone Green tea Hazelnut Kalamata olives, with stone Lavender, dried Mustard seed, dried Nutmeg, dried Oregano, fresh or dried Paprika, dried Peaches Pecans Peppermint, dried Pistachios Plums Pomegranate, whole Red lettuce Red onion Rose flower, dried Rosemary, fresh or dried Saffron, dried Shallots Spinach Strawberries Tempeh Thyme, dried Turmeric, dried Vanilla seeds Walnuts White beans Wild marjoram leaves, dried

Fulton laid a heavy hand on Emma’s knee, there in the larger of Chloe’s two parlors, and Emma quickly set it away. “God’s eyeballs, Emma,” Fulton complained in a sort of whiny whisper, “we’re practically engaged!” “It’s not proper to talk about God’s anatomy,” Emma said stiffly, squinting at the needlework in the stand in front of her before plunging the needle in. “And if you don’t keep your hands to yourself, you’ll just have to go home.” Fulton gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’d think a girl would learn something, living in the same house with Chloe Reese.” Emma’s dark blue eyes were wide with annoyance when she turned them on Fulton. “I beg your pardon?” “Well, I only meant—” “I know what you meant, Fulton.” “A man has a right to a kiss now and then, when he’s willing to promise the rest of his life to a woman!” Emma narrowed her eyes, planning to point out that he wasn’t the only one with a lifetime on the line, but before she could speak, Fulton grabbed her and pressed his dry mouth to hers. She squirmed, wondering why on earth those romantic English novels spoke of kissing as though it were something wonderful, and when she couldn’t get free, she poked Fulton in the hand with her embroidery needle. He gave a shout and jerked back, slapping at his hand as though a bug had lighted there. “Damn it all to perdition!” he barked. Emma calmly rethreaded her needle and went back to embroidering her nosegay. It was a lovely thing of pink, lavender, and white flowers, frothed in baby’s breath. It was never good to let a man get too familiar. “Good night, Fulton,” she said. Stiffly, Fulton stood. “Won’t you even do me the courtesy of walking me to the gate?” he grumbled. Thinking of the respectability that would be hers if she were to marry Fulton someday, Emma suppressed a sigh, secured her needle in the tightly drawn cloth, and rose to her feet. Her arm linked with his, she walked him to the gate. The

The sky this evening bloomed like a broken purple flower, like a ripped-in-half and colour-bleeding-everywhere flower, like a lavender only just discovering what it means to be a lavender. Like a lavender only just discovering how to fit into itself. Only just discovering what it means to be alive. We are like this, too.

By the time Columbus discovered America, the Indians were already using beads for decoration. Beads were made from shells, bones, claws, stones, and minerals. The Algonquin and Iroquois tribes of the eastern coast made beads from clam, conch, periwinkle, and other seashells. These beads were used as a medium of exchange by the early Dutch and English colonists. They were called “wampum,” a contraction of the Algonquin “wampumpeak” or “wamponeage,” meaning string of shell beads. The purple beads had twice the value of the white ones. The explorer, followed by the trader, missionary and settler, soon discovered that he had a very good trade item in glass beads brought from Europe. The early beads that were used were about 1/8 inch in diameter, nearly twice as large as beads in the mid-1800’s. They were called pony beads and were quite irregular in shape and size. The colors most commonly used were sky-blue, white, and black. Other less widely used colors were deep bluff, light red, dark red, and dark blue. The small, round seed beads, as they are called, are the most generally used for sewed beadwork. They come in a variety of colors. Those most commonly used by the Indians are red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue, green, lavender, and black. The missionaries’ floral embroidered vestments influenced the Woodland tribes of the Great Lakes to apply beads in flower designs. Many other tribes, however, are now using flower designs. There are four main design styles used in the modern period. Three of the styles are largely restricted to particular tribes. The fourth style is common to all groups. It is very simple in pattern. The motifs generally used are solid triangles, hourglasses, crosses, and oblongs. This style is usually used in narrow strips on leggings, robes, or blankets. Sioux beadwork usually is quite open with a solid background in a light color. White is used almost exclusively, although medium or light blue is sometimes seen. The design colors are dominated by red and blue with yellow and green used sparingly. The lazy stitch is used as an application. The Crow and Shoshoni usually beaded on red trade or blanket cloth, using the cloth itself for a background. White was rarely used, except as a thin line outlining other design elements. The most common colors used for designs are pale lavender, pale blue, green, and yellow. On rare occasions, dark blue was used. Red beads were not used very often because they blended with the background color of the cloth and could not be seen. The applique stitch was used. Blackfoot beadwork can be identified by the myriad of little squares or oblongs massed together to make up a larger unit of design such as triangles, squares, diamonds, terraces, and crosses. The large figure is usually of one color and the little units edging it of many colors. The background color is usually white, although other light colors such as light blue and green have been used. The smallness of the pattern in Blackfoot designs would indicate this style is quite modern, as pony trading beads would be too large to work into these designs. Beadwork made in this style seems to imitate the designs of the woven quill work of some of the northwestern tribes with whom the Blackfoot came in contact.

In Santa Fe her whole yard had been crowded with different-sized terra-cotta pots, out of which she grew everything from rosemary and lavender to ornamental pear and plum trees and even peppers, although they were not particularly popular with the bees. In Colorado she'd created a fertile oasis out of old gas cans and cut-off oil drums. Her neighbors had been skeptical to begin with but once her creepers grew up and her flowers draped down and her shrubs fluffed out, the junkyard ugly duckling was transformed into the proverbial backyard swan.

The estate looked vast and prosperous- on the surface, at least. Bella Vista was stunningly lovely, the orchards well tended and clearly productive. If there was a place in the world that was closer to heaven, she wasn't aware of it. Bella Vista- Beautiful View. A panorama view of the orchards, herb and flower fields radiated outward from the patio. The scents of ripe apples, lavender and roses rode the breeze, mingling with the mind-melting aroma of Isabel's fresh-baked croissants.

When everyone arrived at the formal garden, lunch had been laid out on the terrace by unseen hands. Bowls of strawberries and frosty buckets of champagne waited beside iced platters of salmon and dill, sliced cold flank steak and a salad composed of all the kitchen garden's earth-bound magic. A tiered cake stand held scores of macarons- pistachio, chocolate, raspberry and more exotic lavender and vanilla, thyme and honey, rose and tea, each topped with the corresponding herb or flower.

The title on the front of the sketchbook was written in bold cursive: 'Libby's Book of Butterflies.' One of the edges was folded, and she smoothed it with her hand, reverently, to honor the sister she'd never known. Then she stepped back under the light and flipped through the first pages. There were beautiful paintings of butterflies, their wings bright from the watercolors. Did her sister create this book or did someone make it for her? Mum had loved her gardens, but Heather had never known her to do any kind of artwork. She'd always been busy planting her flowers and working as a hairdresser and caring well for their family. Intrigued, Heather slowly turned the pages. The butterflies were unique in their brilliance, each one with a magical name. Golden Shimmer. Moonlit Fairy. Lavender Lace. Under the butterflies were short descriptions. Like they all had different personalities. Her favorite was the Autumn Dancer, colored a vibrant orange and red with speckles of teal. It reminded her of a leaf, clinging to its branch before the autumn winds blew it away.

Sorting Laundry" Folding clothes, I think of folding you into my life. Our king-sized sheets like tablecloths for the banquets of giants, pillowcases, despite so many washings, seems still holding our dreams. Towels patterned orange and green, flowered pink and lavender, gaudy, bought on sale, reserved, we said, for the beach, refusing, even after years, to bleach into respectability. So many shirts and skirts and pants recycling week after week, head over heels recapitulating themselves. All those wrinkles To be smoothed, or else ignored; they're in style. Myriad uncoupled socks which went paired into the foam like those creatures in the ark. And what's shrunk is tough to discard even for Goodwill. In pockets, surprises: forgotten matches, lost screws clinking the drain; well-washed dollars, legal tender for all debts public and private, intact despite agitation; and, gleaming in the maelstrom, one bright dime, broken necklace of good gold you brought from Kuwait, the strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover… If you were to leave me, if I were to fold only my own clothes, the convexes and concaves of my blouses, panties, stockings, bras turned upon themselves, a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed.

It was as Frank said: the Sparrow Sisters Nursery had quite a reputation. Sally told Henry about the Nursery that was now a landmark in the town. The plants that grew in tidy rows, the orchids that swayed delicately in the beautiful glass greenhouses, and the herbs and vegetables sown in knot gardens around the land were much in demand. Sorrel had planted a dense little Shakespeare garden as a tribute to her reading habits. The lavender, rosemary, roses and honeysuckle, clematis and pansies, creeping thyme and sage were not for sale in that garden, but Sorrel would re-create versions of it for clients whose big houses on the water needed the stamp of culture, even if their owners had little idea what their lovely gardens meant.

The pictures she drew on were vibrant as ever, though. The crumbling stone farmstead overlooking the great Luberon valley where she was born. The blending room of the distillery in Manosque where she had experienced a kind of rebirth, beginning the transformation into the woman she was now. Scent was memory, and memory a complex blend of scent and emotion: the perfect flowers of the lavender hills, like millions of mauve butterflies fluttering on stalks; the violet; the heliotrope of home, with its heart of sweet almond and cherry vanilla. She mixed them all into her signature fragrance Lavande de Nuit, along with a breath of civet musk and a haunting trace of smoke.

Notwithstanding the pressure in the room, this was always an emotional moment for Grace Lyndon, when someone was experiencing a scent she had created. When Grace was a little girl, her mother became very sick and lost her ability to hold down food, and in her final days lost her sight. But her sense of smell remained, strong as ever, and young Grace would bring to her mother's bedside fresh cut flowers, lilac and iris and tea rose, the sweet scents infusing the room with light and earth and memories long forgotten, and Grace brought in special foods to smell, like warm orange-ginger rolls, glazed and fragrant as winter holiday mornings, and cotton linens, laundered in lavender water and line-dried so you could smell the sun in them, and slices of ripe apples, a scent so perfect that in the end, it made her mother cry bittersweetly.

French toast? Frittata? Definitely frittata. Leaving the table again, she transferred a small packet from freezer to fridge. It was salmon, home-smoked on the island and more delicious than any she had ever found elsewhere. Smoked salmon wasn't Cecily's doing, but the dried basil and thyme she took from the herb rack were. Taking a vacuum-sealed package of sun-dried tomatoes from the cupboard, she set it on the counter beside the herbs. Frittata, hot biscuits, and fruit salad. With mimosas. And coffee. That sounded right. Eaten out on the deck maybe? No, not on the deck, unless the prevailing winds turned suddenly warm. They would eat here in the kitchen, with whatever flowers the morning produced. Surely more lavender. A woman could never have enough lavender- or daylilies or astilbe, neither of which should bloom this early, but both of which had looked further along than the lavender, yesterday morning, so you never knew.

There, on the far side of of the Atlantic, would be Maine, but despite the shared ocean, her island and this one were worlds apart. Where Inishmaan was gray and brown, its fragile man-made soil supporting only the hardiest of low-growing plants, the fertile Quinnipeague invited tall pines in droves, not to mention vegetables, flowers, and improbable, irrepressible herbs. Lifting her head, eyes closed now, she breathed in the damp Irish air and the bit of wood smoke that drifted on the cold ocean wind. Quinnipeague smelled of wood smoke, too, since early mornings there could be chilly, even in summer. But the wood smoke would clear by noon, giving way to the smell of lavender, balsam, and grass. If the winds were from the west, there would be fry smells from the Chowder House; if from the south, the earthiness of the clam flats; if from the northeast, the purity of sweet salt air.

ave you noticed the focus these days is back on the simple things of life? What's the first thing you do when you pick a rose? You smell the fragrance. Maybe it brings back a memory of the time you picked flowers for your mom. Perhaps it's time to recapture some of that girlhood simplicity. A lavender sachet in your drawer can be an unexpected and simple pleasure. Spray a little cologne on your notepaper or even on the bathroom throw rug. Or better yet, boil a little pot of cinnamon and enjoy the aroma. Put on lively music while you do your housework. Light candles for a quiet yet festive atmosphere. When we find satisfaction in the little things in life, we are happier and more willing to look for the positive in bigger things. olor in your home can make a world of difference. It can help you redefine spaces. If an area is too large, add a throw rug in a complementary color and create a "get together" spot. Add some soft colored curtains for a change of seasons. The idea is to create intimacy, a place that's inviting on a chilly evening or a warm spring afternoon. The richer the colors, the more welcoming the space. Red is great for warmth. Go for it! And shades of cranberry and plum work well. Experiment and step out of your comfort zone. Your home can be a place that gives you a feeling of quiet for thinking about what really counts in life and also be a festive atmosphere for celebrating. on't put all your emotional eggs in one basket. Our work consumes much of our time, and that's natural. And for some of you, that's 95 percent of your awake hours. Is it time to change your focus-to make life a little easier and less stressful for

How many ways can we count hope? It is every breath we breathe and every beat of our hearts. Hope is the flower that refuses to die off though winter’s chill lays claim. Hope is the rushing river, moving the earth and watering the banks. It is more than strength; it fills any vessel and it strengthens any fight. I won’t fall to despair, Grace. Hope keeps my feet moving. And though doubt tries to fill my mind, hope has taken me captive. I am its slave. And because I am, my soul is under obligation—hope blooms in me. I hope it is still blooming in you.

Huge containers of red and pink geraniums were placed on each step and window boxes full of pink and lavender flowers lined the porch railings.

I lay down My life for the sheep. —John 10:15 (NAS) Just before Easter, I made special efforts setting the dining room table. I’d purchased a pastel tablecloth with cute rabbits and decorated eggs on it. My ancient, flowered dishes, which had been my mother’s, blended in perfectly. For a centerpiece, I decided on a lavender, velveteen rabbit and purple irises from our yard. Still, I wasn’t quite satisfied with my handiwork. Something seemed to be missing. The back door opened and I heard, “Mom.” My son Jeremy had stopped by after getting off from work. We sat down in the living room. “Anything happen at the restaurant today?” “Yeah, it did. Today I served a fellow. We made small talk. He was alone. When I went to clear off his table, he handed me a bill. I almost just stuck it in my pocket. I don’t usually look at tips. But I did this time.” “And?” “A twenty!” “Wow.” “I ran after him, almost to his car. ‘Sir, you gave me a twenty by mistake.’ He turned to me, smiled, and said, ‘No mistake. I wanted you to have it.’ ‘But it’s way too much. You don’t have to do this.’ “Looking right into my eyes, he said, ‘Jesus didn’t have to go to the Cross either.’” After my son left, I found a small wooden cross and stood it by the purple irises on the dining room table. Jesus, keep me near the Cross—daily. —Marion Bond West Digging Deeper: 1 Cor 1:18; Gal 6:14; Col 2:14

She reached into the burlap sack that she kept draped over her shoulder and retrieved a large spray of lavender and bunches of marigold. "To decorate your supper club," Ms. Rose said. "They are the colors of Mardi Gras: purple for justice, gold for power, and the green leaves represent faith." "These are beautiful," Tiana said as she took the flowers. Their coloring was so vivid they looked otherworldly.

Fragrances rise up---the thyme's spicy astringency and the fuzzy menthol of the sage, the chamomile's daisy-petal smell and the piney cool rosemary. The lavender, not yet in flower, is surprisingly mute. I direct the mist toward the basil, and the aroma jumps up like a lemon tree eating a pizza.

Thereafter a purple glow steals over the waste, as the sea lavender bursts into flower, and simultaneously every creek and pool is royally fringed with sea aster. A little later the glass-wort, that shot up green and transparent as emerald glass in the early spring, turns to every tinge of carmine.

Needing to shake off the negative energy, I decide to prepare one of the desserts---something sweet to take away the sour taste of fear infiltrating my mouth. I'm going to tackle the strawberry and lavender sorbet---the herb from Garrance's rooftop garden, the strawberries sweet and juicy. Thankfully, the recipe is easy---especially when you have three Thermomix machines at your disposal. After commandeering most of the ingredients, I smell the lavender Garrance had bestowed upon us and another fantasy sets in. Charles and I are running through a field bursting with purple flowers in the South of France, smiling and laughing. We're kissing, softly at first, and then we're naked, exploring each other's bodies, his rippled stomach, and floating on a cloud made from the fragrance of the lavender---sweet and woodsy--- "Kate, where'd you go? You look all dreamy," says Charles. "Nowhere. Just thinking," I say. "You're sexy as hell when you think. You bite those full lips of yours and it's kind of distracting when I'm trying to work.