Call this The Things That Make Us Happy, Second Edition (small).For you poor benighted souls who don't live in Dixie, this is a magnolia blossom, and in this brief moment before summer smothers us with humidity, the trees are thick with them. The flowers are as big and expansive as a southern girl's vowels and just as fragrant.
The perfume always reminds me of the old school southern doyenne, one of those women who roll with a social grace that seems effortless and yet is as much a skill to be mastered as yoga or gardening. It is a rare skill today and may be as endangered as the demitasse spoon. But that's another topic for another day.
Today, let us pause and enjoy the beauty of this iconic southern flower. This morning I stopped and dipped my snoot into one and it made me as happy as a bee.
So, consider this an extension of yesterday's post. What little things make you happy? What small thing brings you joy? What is your magnolia blossom?
Talk to me.
6 comments:
Well, as much as I love the blossoms on the giant magnolia tree in my yard, I hate the millions and millions of leaves that it drops on my yard and driveway every spring while the flowers are blooming. So I'm no help here.
Ah magnolias. I was born in Louisiana and magnolias are about the only thing my mother liked about that state.
Personally, flowerwise, I look forward to lilacs. We had a huge lilac bush (really not a bush, more like a well, a huge tree-like bush) in our back yard when I was a kid and the smell was wonderful. Now I'm like a junkie, get me near the smell of lilacs and I'm lost.
Huffing the cat when he comes in from outside.
What? Don't look at me like that. He smells like laundry...
"What little things make you happy?"
Being a southern girl, reading magnolia blossoms described as "flowers as big and expansive as a southern girl's vowels and just as fragrant."
Sitting on my deck, listening to the birds as the sun goes down.
That, and listening to Humble Pie's "30 Days In the Hole."
Funny thing; just last night, driving to dinner with the windows down, she says to me, "I smell magnolia!" "Really?", I responded, not having caught the scent yet. Looking about though, I saw that almost every yard on that street had at least one towering tree of the blooms. We held hands the rest of the way.
BTW, I agree with DebbieJ. That's a nice line.
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