Last night I stopped in at a garden center, just to see what's up and to make myself feel better. Spring is here, I keep telling myself. It just doesn't feel like it yet.
The place was pretty empty. (If only we could peruse the aisles like this in the height of the season!) One person at the check-out, one helper to answer questions, one other customer and row upon row of pansies. It was very pleasant to examine them closely, without being jostled or rushed. They're not the first flower to come to mind when you think color, texture and shape, but they're actually quite beautiful. Take a look some time.
I've always loved pansies. They're such a cheery sight, especially when the spring skies are dark and it's chilly and you're thinking sun and warmth will never get here. I especially like the single-color ones in shades of purple and yellow, purple so dark it seems brown or black and yellow as golden as corn. Careful if you touch the petals. They're soft as a ripe peach.
The name derives from pensee, the French word for thought (it should have an accent on the second e but I can't figure out how to do that), because the flower's heart shape looks so human. And don't you love the fact that another name for pansy is "love-in-idleness"? In Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the juice of pansy blossoms becomes a love potion:
"Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness."
Unfussy, delicate but sturdy, smile-inducing, sweet, pansies are the perfect harbinger of spring. We wouldn't mind a little love-in-idleness either.
