Smell the Roses

As I've traveled through life the older (and wiser) folks have sometimes said, "Stop and smell the roses." I thought it was good advice. Now that I'm getting older and observe younger people bustling around multi-tasking (they say) and burning the candle at both ends, I give them the same advice.

Kuro is due for a haircut but meanwhile he is watching the dog across the street from the wild roses.

Earlier this evening, Kuro and I went for our walk and happened by the south side of a small park not far away where there is a patch of wild roses.

Wild roses, being wild are quite hardy and have been growing on this little stretch of hilltop for many years. Every few years some Seattle City Parks Department bureaucrat decides the wild roses don't fit their picture of proper park foliage and has them cut right down to the ground. A year or so later they are back up and doing their thing.

Many of the homes in this neighborhood have domesticated roses but they aren't in bloom yet this year. Many years they might be blooming by now but this year has been especially wet and cold so the only roses to stop and smell are these wild roses.

Wild roses have a delicate but sweet and distinctive fragrance. Once you've smelled these flowers on a warm summer day you won't easily forget the aroma. Not overpowering but when their perfume drifts by on the breeze it brings back happy memories of carefree summers of long ago.

As I look at the flowers going through their cycle of life I'm reminded of when I was young, when old people usually died at home. In the same house you might find a baby and young people, young adults, older people and those in their last days.

This patch of roses has a few white flowers, something I haven't seen in other places. There aren't many white ones but they bring a colorful (or is it lack of color) contrast to the pink and red of the others.

A few feet away we found some Scotch Broom just coming into bloom. Now there's an intruder the Parks Manager would be wise to eradicate, or at least try to since it's a hardy plant too, and invasive to boot.

Leaving the park we made our way north and found the old wisteria shown in another blog entry. It is in full bloom now.

The wisteria has a sort of dusty smell so my good friend and I retraced our steps and refreshed our olfactory memory of the wild roses before we went back home. 

I'll remember to come by this place again as summer arrives with warmer weather to enhance the smell even more.