Summer's First

 She is the first for the summer of 2021.  I fell in love with gardenias as a child.  My grandmother Mamie had them in her flower garden.  Each time I smell that rich sweet, yet earthy fragrance I feel a beckoning. I think the scent is like the siren's call, reminding me summer is here, enjoy its bounty.  The purity of those white petals against the  malachite of her leaves gives me indescribable joy.  When I saw this first blossom on Monday by my grill, my first thought was of Rick.  I think he sent me a gift, because so far there are no other blossoms, plenty of buds, but no other blooms.

Every summer, I fill the house with gardenia blossoms.  She makes the heat and humidity of summer tolerable.  There are a least a dozen bushes on the farm.  Most are taller than me, some have the circumference of my Outback.  Some years the flowers are small, but if this first one is any indication of this year, they are going to be large.

Our friends, Keith and Roberta's wedding was one of those wonderful memories forever etched in my brain.  Rick and I were in the wedding party, we took the photographs, it was the day before my birthday and it was in NYC.  They had gardenia bushes in full bloom for their flowers.  Not sure where they got them in March, in NYC but I think of their wedding and the happiness we all shared when I see gardenias.

The temps are rising, so is the humidity.  There is rain this morning and for most of the week. But the gardenias will bloom and as nature has shown me so many times since Rick has died, life goes on.