There is a soft scent of wild freesias in the air here at home. Not heady and over powering like a rose, or perhaps a lily. Instead, a soft subtle scent catching your senses. Giving a contented pause to thoughts with that long inhalation, and even a little slowing of the day.

With daydreams on pause lately, lists have been written, tasks getting crossed off and plans for a family adventure are nearing. Those wild daydreams are simply being relocated to another time slot.

And yet, after a mornings walk, coming home with a surprise bunch of incredible smelling freesias I had found scattered through the gully. It was impossible to not let the mind wander. Those wild daydreams had found a way to briefly sneak in again.

Nostalgic thoughts, and forward thinking thoughts. Daydreams that had been cast aside for another day, they were all still there, they just needed a little dusting off.

Wild freesias remind me of my mother. Collecting them from the sides of cold wind-swept hill tops. As kids, we would collect them in haphazard bunches. No concern for the length of stem, the amount of other gathered foliage, or perhaps leaving a little for another time. Grab it in large bunches, and then run back down the hill with the prized bunches in freezing cold hands. It would get you a guaranteed smile of love and affection. With eyes half closed, she would drink the soft delicate scent in. Perhaps for her too, that smell would take her away to another place, a place where dusted off daydreams roamed.

While commercially grown freesias are far easier to obtain, it’s not something I ever buy. It just wouldn’t be the same. Sure with the similar green stems and an assortment of coloured flowers, I could pretend they might be. But that soft scented evocative smell isn’t there at all, and that means those wild daydreams?

Well they just aren’t attached.

***********

Unshackling ideas and the art of daydreaming