At 17 I would lay by my open window at night or climb out onto the roof below and breathe the warm night air as the scent of Star Jasmine rose up to meet me. It was nights like those when I learned to keep track of my thoughts, my hopes, my sorrows.

I would stretch out in the night sky enveloped by the stars and the smell of the perfect white blossoms and write.

And write.

And write again.

Poems, tales, letters. Some of them have never seen another pair of eyes or the light of day but many of them were letters of love and anguish. Many were words I would trace over and over with my pen, then the tip of my finger.

And I would breathe.

Breathe that sweet smell of sorrow and freedom.

As I strolled through the plant nursery with my daughter the other day the wind picked up just a little and what came up to meet me but the smell of Star Jasmine.

I’d never seen it here in Portland and I hadn’t smelled it in years, but at that very moment walking hand in hand with my little girl it all came back.

And after all these years the smell, the potent, beautiful, tranquil smell all came down to the future.

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This was written for the June 2007 Pulsate Olympics which is sponsored by Creative Wanderings.