A flower that has intrigued me since I was very young is the gardenia and this photo is of the first blossoming in my patio yard of the spring. Now there are four blossoms and between the gardenias and the blooming star jasmine, the patio smells heavenly.
I like to think of paradise as past, present and future. Past: The first corsage I was given in high school was from a boy named Jack--and it was a gardenia. I pressed it and I have it still in my high school memorabilia scrapbook. My bridal bouquet was made of gardenias. Every house I've lived in I have planted gardenias and my daughter Christy has the same sentimental attachment to them as I have.
Present: Includes gardenias in my very own yard, once again, as they have been in all my homes over the years. Sometimes we look for paradise outside our own environments, but I like to think that paradise is where I am planted. The present is doing a quick Google search to see if gardenias have a meaning in the language of flowers that I've never known. I try to learn one if not several new things each day. Buzzle says: Gardenia flowers mean secret love, purity and joy. Beauty and lovely too are words associated with this flower. Prized for its sweet smell, gardenia flowers are also used in wedding celebrations as wedding symbols, because marriage symbolizes love and purity.
Future: A heads up to my children and friends who occasionally give me plants or flowers. Gardenias are always welcomed! I close my eyes at this typing point and I have a vision of me as the old woman that I am skipping on a sandy beach in a loose gauzey white dress with a gardenia bouquet. I'll be mindful that gardenias are problematic for people with allergies, but thank heavens, awful as my allergies are, they do not affect me physically. I don't want to be covered in gardenias at my funeral because their fragrance doesn't appeal to everyone, but perhaps one or two tucked in somewhere?
Thanks, Jack, for that long-ago gardenia corsage. I know you now as an old man very happily married forever to Brenda, but I don't ever think I've mentioned how you are responsible for my life-long love of gardenias.
Rebecca at Recuerda mi Corazon hots Postcards From Paradise every Sunday. Be sure to visit her today as she has some gorgeous art that has submitted for her Oaxacan Shrine auction to benefit the children there.
