Sure enough, the scent of the Daphne takes me right back to my childhood, To Laurelhurst Park, to honey sunshine and rain sparkles of springs gone by. Gone way by. More than half a century passing. The sky was bluer then – it’s true! I have pictures to prove it. Old square color slides taken by my father, with hues rich and dense as honey. And skies the blue of an angel’s eyes, I swear.

But back to the Daphne that grew like a perfumed offering in our back yard. My grandmother, with loving wrinkled fingers, would pick a single sprig. She would place it in a tiny Chinese vase. For me. So long gone by.