daffodils

Maybe we only did this one time when I was a child, but it was so extraordinary that it shines through the years!

The mother of my best friend could not possibly have been more different from my mother - and I adored both of them. But Mary was fun-loving, spontaneous, completely non-traditional in the way she conducted her life. The only cross to her life - and it was a big one - was that she was the preacher's wife and indeed that did cramp her style at every turn!

But one spring she gathered all of us kids in the car and headed for the nearby farmland of a friend. There was a wooded plot on the land that had been allowed to grow wild and consequently the underbrush teemed with thorny briars, making passage difficult and at places, impossible. But the prize was that throughout the briars, scattered like jewels for a few weeks of the year, were wild daffodils. They were double yellow cups, whites, ruffled edges, plain petals, orange/yellow/white centers - variants like I have never seen since. And we donned snow-pants, old heavy coats, boots and plowed through the briars to pick them. We ended up with buckets of breathtaking beauty!

I do remember the briars. They scratched our hands and even cheeks as branches sprung back. 

But no amount of years will dim the memory of the scent and sight of those daffodils and I have to clone Wordsworth's thoughts:

"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude
And they my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils."