Violets

Violets are my favorite flower and today, I spotted two tiny patches, one in the garden outside the door and one on a country walk. 

That's all--two patches less than a few inches across in an area that covers kilometers.

As a child I grew up on 14 acres of land. In the spring if we left by the back door, past the two maple trees with our swing hanging between them, past the circle of purple irises, past the apple tree with the pink blossoms, we were at the top of a small hill.

That hill was covered with violets, yards and yards and yards. I always wanted to eat a grape Popsicle ever time I looked at the lawn of purple violets. 

My mother and I would pick a bouquet each year. We'd pick and pick and pick. Sometimes the bouquet was eight to ten inches.

We'd take the flowers home and put them in a pewter pitcher, that was usually used for water at meals, but was relinquished for flower-duty in the spring. When it was first filled, water would condense on the surface making trails and patterns.

I still have the pitcher in my Nest in the South of France. After more than a century and a half of use (it was my great grandmother's in the 1880s) it leaks. I use it for ladles, spoons and spatulas, not as pretty as the violets, but efficient as a holder of kitchen utensils and happy memories.