It is easier with a song than a flower; a lyric or tune picked from the soundtrack of your life (I’ve Been Loving You Too Long: Otis Redding, is mine or, more correctly, ours). Favoured flowers, though, are quieter, with less information to draw on. It is my wife’s birthday this week and I will buy her lily of the valley: a bunch of flowering bulbs to be enjoyed, then replanted by a northern sea.
I am unsure how it came about. It is an unlikely choice, though they were there in her childhood (often important), same as nasturtiums for me. Beloved by her beloved grandmother (flowers can leap a generation: my dad despised dahlias, I adore them). Fragrance is also important, at least for us, as is timing. There has to be a link and they have to be available.
There is a soulful shyness about lily of the valley. Old-school, same as violets, they are easily missed, easily overwhelmed by gaudier blooms (I also love a loud flower). But there is a pot on our roof terrace from a bunch bought a few years ago and they are quietly stirring now.
I add to them every year, though these days we plant them under trees, to be searched for like the first snowdrop.
Originally from Japan, introduced in the Middle Ages, they are a flower of romance in France. May Day is celebrated by La Fête du Muguet, when lily of the valley is available in florists and supermarkets to be given to loved ones, dating back to the days of Charles IX and annual lily of the valley dances where singles could meet without parents’ permission.
Here, they were seen as a lucky charm. So I will hunt for a bunch and I thank my luck for my wife and her fragrant birthday. But tell me, which would be your flower?
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