Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

of a light breeze. Each tiny flower, their white bell-shaped petals edged by the tiniest dab of lime green, shimmered in our garden. Grandma’s flower of spring came to us from beneath the snow, a simple flower, carrying so much hope and joy for everyone. Don’t Be Afraid of Good Stress @ 195

Grandma cultivated in our garden only flowers that made good sense to her. She planted periwinkles, in spite of a common belief in Italy that the periwinkle is “the flower of the dead.”

“So what?” she said. “My garden is not a garden without periwinkles. They bring happiness, as my garden brings relaxation.”

The periwinkle is a symbol of everlasting life but is also considered by many to be a flower symbolizing jealousy. But Grandma did not think so and she told me a fairy tale about the periwinkle’s little-known secret. T he periwinkle is one of the first flowers to

blossom in the spring. Like the fragrant violet,

it announces the coming spring, but the periwinkle was

upset that people and the gods paid more attention to the

violet than to it. However, the periwinkle’s leaves and flowers are not less beautiful than that of the violet; only in fragrance does the violet surpass the periwinkle.

Once, when the goddess Flora came down to the earth in spring, she was charmed with the delicate smell of the violet. She caressed it and offered to make it taller, so it could tower over the other flowers, instead of smelling sweetly living discreetly in the shadows of other plants. Suddenly a thin, whining voice sounded.

“Who is complaining?” Flora asked.

“It is me,” replied the periwinkle.

“What do you want? Why are you crying?”

“I cry because you, the mother of flowers, don’t notice me while at the same time you pour over the violet your graces and offer to make it better.”

Flora looked at the little plant which she did not know at all or maybe she had just forgotten. Gods often cannot remember every single creature they have made. And so Flora asked, “What is your name?”

“I don’t have a name yet,” answered the periwinkle.

“In that case what do you wish for?”

“I wish to have a pleasant smell like the violet. Give it to me, Flora, and I will be very, very grateful.”

196 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

“Unfortunately, that I cannot give you,” replied Flora. “A plant receives this miraculous gift when it is the will of the Creator. It is given to a plant through the kiss of a genius appointed to guard it. You were born without a scent.”

“Give me some kind of special gift that can make me equal to the violet. I am even similar to it in color, but everyone loves the violet, not me.”

“Okay,” agreed the goddess. “Blossom much longer than the violet. Blossom even then when the violet is long gone.”

“Thank you, Flora. This is a great gift. Now when lovers try to find shady spots in gardens or parks and don’t run into a violet, then maybe they will pay attention to me. They will take me and attach small bouquets of flowers to their chest near hearts beating with love.”

“It can happen,” responded the goddess.

“But I would like to ask you something else,” continued the periwinkle. “Make my flowers larger than the violet’s.”

“As you wish. I can do that also. Let your flowers be larger than the violet’s. The size does not indicate depth. Your looks say nothing about how intelligent you are.”

Flora became irritated with the periwinkle’s persistence and wanted to leave, but it seemed that the plant wasn’t satisfied yet.

“What else do you want?” asked Flora. “You get a larger flower than the violet. You will blossom longer that it will. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, Flora, since you are already so nice to me, then give me a name also, because without a name I am nothing.”

Instead of becoming upset, Flora simply smiled.

“Okay, that’s easy enough,” she said. “You’ll be named Pervinca from the Latin verb meaning win because no matter what, you always want to defeat your more modest and beautiful neighbor. Let your name be the expression of your jealous nature.”

And from that time on the flower was called

periwinkle.

Don’t Be Afraid of Good Stress @ 197

There is a Ukrainian belief that a bouquet of periwinkles is a symbol of love and fidelity and those who plant periwinkles can be assured that their dreams will come true. In France there is a common notion that the demure periwinkle is the “witch’s violet.” Even so, during a recent trip to Switzerland, I noticed blue periwinkles encircling the monument of JeanJacques Rousseau, an eighteenth-century French writer and philosopher, on the tiny Ile Rousseau in Lake Geneva. The periwinkle was a favorite flower of Rousseau, and his first love, a French baroness Françoise-Louise de Warens, also called Madame de Warens. It was particularly special to Rousseau because it reminded him of the good years of his youth and the love that he lost.

Rousseau met her in 1728 on Palm Sunday, a moveable feast in the church calendar observed by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. This Sunday before Easter changed his life forever. Still