Rosa Acicularis, Prickly Wild Rose

Down in the lower gardens on the strip, where the Milky Way shone bright at night, our wild roses grew. Mom brought them small from Grandma's garden up in Minnesota, but they were enthusiastic flowers and fast made our home their own. Yesterday I asked Mom if the roses were still there, and she said yes, it's hard to keep them at bay.... which I was glad to hear. Wild roses are my favorite flowers. Have you sniffed a wild rose? The scent is like a drug, it overtakes me. During this time of year, I often smell them before I see them; where are you, my delicious friend? There you are, and I make the apt-named beeline to stand and inhale, inhale until I almost faint of too much oxygen. Standing like that, I see the secret world beneath the spiny bushes and it reminds me of picking raspberries in the forest as a child. Did you know? Raspberries and roses are in the same family. I think I am part of that family, too.

From Snow White and Rose Red

Roses. Probably the most oft-referenced flower by artists and poets through many centuries, and used symbolically in countless myths/folktales/etc. When I was very small, my dad told me about the brilliance of Gertrude Stein: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"... which I didn't understand, but pretended to, because Dad spoke to me like I was a smart girl who would know such things. There is a Grimm's fairy tale called Snow White and Rose Red that my sister Rhiannon and I loved. She said they were us--- she was Snow White and I was Rose Red. That suited me fine. Mom read us Romeo and Juliet out loud, explaining every line as she went. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet." Yes, yes I understood that! Because I had smelled roses, and there was no denying the transcendence of their scent. One of our best friends growing up was named Rose. Everyone else called her "Rosie"; we stubbornly stuck with "Rose." To me that meant the wholeness of the flowering plant in all its glory, whereas "rosie" sounded like an adjective, a skin tone. I still call her Rose, and I'm sure she will laugh reading this.

Last year in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, I stumbled across a treasure by the windows in the "Dutch room."

The Madonna and Child in a Rose Arbor, 16th c., Workshop of Martin Schongauer, German, 1450-1491, Oil on wood

Page of a 16th c. German hymnal

This painting is spell-binding to me. I think it feels like home. All the plants are hyper-real, which in my mind seems more real than "actual" real.... and I know what most of them are because I grew up in that garden. Roses have been used since Medieval times as a symbol for both Christ and Mary. In the 16th century German hymn "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" ("Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"), it symbolizes Christ's birth. Mom used to sing this hymn at Christmastime; it was always one of her favorites. I wasn't a fan back then because it was difficult for me to sing, and I didn't understand how a rose had to do with Christmas. Now I love it because it reminds me of Mom.

I eat roses. I drink roses. I put roses on my body.... Raspberries drizzled with rose water, rose-petal kombucha, Weleda wild rose body oil and Wyndmere rose oil in jojoba. I cannot get enough. Of course I am aware that roses are cliche as a favorite flower. However, I think resisting my love of these divine blossoms because so many have loved them before... would prove me rather silly. When I was a little girl, I chose brown as my favorite color for a long time, because I felt sorry for the brown Crayola marker. No one seemed to love it. These days, I just go right for the juiciest, sparkliest, tastiest, and most colorful. Sorry brown Crayola marker. After all, as they say, life is short. So I stop and smell the ... like, every five minutes.