The wrinkled periwinkle

Persistent love. That is apparently one of the meanings or representations of vinca minor, or common periwinkle. That makes these marvels the reflection of my heartbeats, the dance of my sighs of hope, the vibrancy of my passion, and the melody of my dreams, day in and day out. Pervenche, in French. Since childhood, I had always liked the name (heard or read), and now as an adult, I have always cherished the flower, but never until yesterday morning through my online searches had I connected the two of them together !! Such a good feeling when two senses converge to deliver pure beauty, when the visually pleasant meets a nice-sounding name... Finally, something falling into place in this time of chaos...

I am so fortunate to have a plethora of these miniature fans scattered on my front yard and on various locations on the path of my daily walk.

The periwinkle winks at me

Unwrinkled, perfect

Hiding in a bush

Or braving the rain

Are they wrinkled, ''chiffonnées'', combed, unfolded, exposed ?

So, can you think of a better symbol for the... soul ? Isn't it just perfect as is ?

Because do we criticize the periwinkle for retracting to hide its petals from the rain ? Or hail for that matter ? Whatever the flower does, it is beautiful, unique, delicate, miraculous.

And when I speak of hail, I mean hail that distracted me from my tele-work 3-4 times, and that persisted for hours into the night... I wonder what happened to mesdames Pervenches !!!

So anyway, I am glad I took a picture of these adorable flowers, two days before the hell of a hail...

These vibrant heliotropes remind us of the delicate sacredness of our souls. As I shoveled the fragmented Styrofoam-like matter or micro mothball-looking spheres of hail on my roof (I know, I am crazy) to prevent stagnation of water in areas where it doesn't drain easily, I felt sorry for these flowers and their premature enthusiasm for spring... A spring that is obviously playing hide-and-seek... always making itself desired like an irresistible, entitled lover... 

Because it stood me up, I decided to find another warm hug to my soul. I discovered recently how much warmer a fire is the smaller the pieces of wood. Probably because the bigger surface area of all the small burning twigs combined generate more heat than one big log. So I proceeded to burn everything I had brought inside from bigger branches that had fractured and detached from trees during two of the major rainstorms. And my fire was so hot and wonderful, its dancing flames and its whispering sound almost hypnotized me.

And just like a periwinkle crumpled by life, I ended the day on a more serene note, triumphant of all adversities and uncertainties thrown at me, as I concluded my evening quietly, warming up by the last breath of a fire, first by trying to be productive in the hope to finish my progress notes always piling up in the Sisyphean EMR in-basket, and then, getting tired after completing 3, thinking ''what the hail'' (LOL) and opting to finish a book while sitting on a pouf (proud of this 13-dollar purchase at IKEA !), filled with this sense of wholeness that comes with the freedom experienced from not having to ask permission to exist.