A Whiff, a Waft, a Wonder

When I first started working where I work I was swept away by my walk there. It leads me through the prettiest part of the city. The lime trees, so fragrant in the spring; the pipe-cleaner trees with their twisted yellow branches. At the moment of course, the conkers, which I still compulsively fill my pockets with. The views of the hill. If I am mindful I can become really happy but often my mind is filled with the mundanities of work. 

The surrounds of where I work is beautiful too. There is a small team of gardeners. Their existence filled me with much happiness when I started this job; I was overwhelmed that my new employers valued the environmental and the aesthetic. They have grown morning glory all over the café railings; they have created ponds and wildlife areas. Their planting has attracted lots of dragonflies and I even saw a hummingbird hawk moth, which I honestly thought was a bird when I first saw it nosing in the buddleia.

On my very ugly building the gardeners are training a climbing plant, fixing it with bits of wire and cleverness to the brickwork. I have never come across it before. Creamy white flowers like a child would draw crop up on it twice or thrice a year and their scent is extraordinary.  Everything else I mainly take for granted but when I walk past these I really do wake up and smell the flowers. I always pause, I always inhale as deeply as I can as near as I can to these blooms. Even during the smelling they fill me with yesterdays. They remind me of death and rebirth. They make me wonder, if I smell them too hard will I rob others of the opportunity to be magicked by them? They slightly break my heart, or make it remember all its repaired fractures. 

When the flowers die I wait for them impatiently. I could ask the gardeners what the plant is called, but that would steal some mystery.