My Madeleine: Honeysuckle at the Jersey Shore

Japanese honeysuckle 

The scent and taste of honeysuckle at the Jersey shore this weekend sent me to find Proust's description, in In Search of Lost Time, of the unleashing of memories with the taste of a madeleine:

....after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. 

honeysuckle nectar

I remember myself as a child, in my sand-covered feet, my father teaching me how to pull the pistil from the deliciously scented flower, slowly and carefully so as to preserve the tiny drop of nectar that emerges, which I would taste with delight. It was such a tiny little pleasure, but one that seemed to have outsized magic: sweets coming from a flower! It was part of the summer's joys: swimming in the ocean, bare sandy feet slapping on slate pavement, the outdoor shower, barbecues on Sunday evenings. 

Honeysuckle Goldflame

I grow honeysuckle here in Vermont, but as beautiful as the plants are, and as sweetly scented, as Goldflame is, they don't have that special drop of nectar.

Honeysuckle Dropmore Scarlet

Dropmore Scarlet is a tall and vigorous vine that grows beside my front door, adding vivid color almost all summer long....but it too has no sweet liquid, although the hummingbirds love it and I often watch them dipping into the flowers. It is only when I visit my family down at the shore that I can relive the surprise and delight of sipping nectar from a flower.

Thanks, Dad, for teaching me the secrets of the honeysuckle, and those of "riding the waves". I can't resist trying to body surf any time I see a small curled wave, and it's still a thrill to feel myself carried along by the energy of the water. And thanks for instilling in me and in my brothers and sisters a solid moral compass, a way of living with kindness and compassion, humor and love.