Smell The Flowers

Dear Daughters,

Never stop stopping to smell the roses.

And I mean that literally.

Every time we pass a lilac bush, you pause and take a giant whiff, just like I do.

And man, maybe I’ve messed up being a mom in a 100 ways, but if I’ve taught you through my own frivolous little habit that life is better when you can stop what you’re doing to smell a flower, then maybe I can rest knowing I’ve done something OK.

And it isn’t just the lilacs.

I love how you’ve followed my example of sticking your fingers into our potted herbs at home and putting them up to your noses.

You know what a joy it is to rub a lemon verbena leaf between your fingers and have them smell like sweet lemonade after.

We touch rosemary. Chamomile. Peppermint. Sage. And we enjoy all of their different and amazing scents. We’ve made it a ritual.

I love how when we walk past our neighbor’s lavender plants, even in the dead of winter when they are dry and brown and crackly, you stop to rub your hands through the prickles so you can smell that wonderful lavender smell on your skin.

I love how you pick the tiny white flowers interrupting the sea of boring grass and put them directly to your noses to see what they smell like. Usually it isn’t much of anything but you always give them to me and ask me to smell, too. What a joy it is to share the experience with you of inhaling the nonexistent scent of those tiny flowers.

I know that this – smelling flowers – seems really simple. Silly even. Like it doesn’t really need to be called out as anything special.

But I think it does, girls.

We live in a time when something as human and natural and joyful as smelling a flower isn’t much appreciated. It isn’t productive enough. Stimulating enough (if you can believe that). Why stop to smell a flower when you could be doing something more useful or more fun instead?

Why stop to smell a flower when you can smell artificial smells around you all day in the form of cleaners and candles, shampoos, soaps, and perfumes? Why enjoy the natural scent of plant oils on your skin when you can buy a bottled chemical version that sprays at your convenience?

I hope that you can see that those are highly rhetorical questions. And I hope that together we have learned that what makes life worth living are the flower-smelling moments. The moments where we are connected to our senses, to other living things, to the wonder and awe and magic in our world.

It’s in those tiny moments, in the presence of beautiful flowers and their naturally enticing aromas, that we remember what it is to be alive.

So please, girls, never stop smelling the flowers. Never stop letting that simple pleasure bring a smile to your beautiful faces.

XO – Mom