Breathe In Sweet Bouquets

by Guest Blogger, Dawn Downey

I was the only black person touring 30 Americans--an exhibit of American life seen through the lens of thirty contemporary black artists. I felt out of place among the white onlookers, even though I was an onlooker, too, gawking at my own life. Four hundred years of black emotions—mine, the artists’, our ancestors’—compressed into claustrophobic passageways and alcoves. 

I chuckled at a historical montage of black hair. Yup, I’ve used that hot comb, endured the sizzle and odor of burning hair. I levitated with joy at the human-shaped sculpture made entirely of flower blossoms. You couldn’t identify gender, race, or age. Yes, let me see only gardenias when I look at my enemies. Let me breathe in sweet bouquets, instead of noxious opinions. But as soon as each happy piece disappeared from my sight line, its inspiration evaporated. 

Maybe I have a greater capacity for despair than optimism. Despite the intermittent uplift, four hundred years squeezed me down to: It’s hopeless to be black in America.  


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Dawn Downey

The Heavenly Fragrance of Gardenias

My sweetie told me that his mother--also named Sweetie--loved gardenias. They reminded her of the corsages she wore to debutante parties when she was young, back in the Roaring '20s.

One Christmas i gave her a gardenia plant, and when she died in 1995, i took her gardenia plant home with me. It's been limping along in my solarium ever since.

I knew gardenias like a foliar spray, but i never quite managed to spritz it regularly. Then i found a salmon plant food spray next to the fish emulsion at the garden center, and last month i began spraying the gardenia every day or two.

My sweetie complained of the fishy smell. The label does say it's a "superior fermented salmon product." Nevertheless, the stinky smell has reward me with a record 5 white blossoms exuding a heavenly fragrance.

Sometimes our meditation practice limps along--even for years--before we find just the right nutriment--a teacher, a teaching, or a community (at home or on retreat). Then our practice flowers, and we realize that the heavenly actually resides within us, right along with some of those "stinky" qualities.