Monday October 19, 2009
the jasmine in my mind
I love jasmine.
Pink and white and tenacious with that heady scent.
When I’m out walking and I see it lolling against a wall I always have to stop and rip off a bit to tuck behind my ear or sniff at as I wander.
I stick jasmine in poems a lot. Jasmine, tea cups, plants generally. Also references to clothing and sewing and gardening. Write what you know, aye?
When I moved into this house I wanted my own jasmine vine and discovered you can’t buy it anymore at garden centres because it is now considered a pest. Whenever anyone tells me I can’t have something, it always makes me want it harder and become more determined to have it. You can only buy star jasmine now, which doesn’t smell as good or grow as wildly...so I grew some from a cutting from a neighbour’s plant down the road. In just five years it has crept up the side of my sleep-out, over the windows and wrapped itself peskily and snake-like all around the guttering. Yes, it is a prolific and vaguely sinister plant. Maybe that is why I like it so much.
We might be leaving this house soon, all going well, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the garden - leaving behind trees I have nurtured and flowers I have cherished.
I once had a friend who lived in a crumbling old villa and when you went to get a cup, there was jasmine growing through the cupboards from the outside of the house.
The first time I drank jasmine tea I found straining the jasmine flowers through my teeth be weirdly titillating.
I think where ever I go, there will have to be a jasmine vine.