Under the Jasmine

Under the jasmine

 

Late afternoon, two beautiful young men from my past came to visit.

When I first lived in France, I met an American woman named Bonnie, she was my saving grace to surviving that first year of feeling utterly lost and overwhelmed in Paris.

Bonnie was with her husband, who was in Paris doing research at the Institute Pasteur. Bonnie was pregnant with her first child, Ben. Two years later Bonnie and I were pregnant at the same time: I was pregnant with Chelsea and she was pregnant with Jon. A few months after Chelsea was born my friend moved back with her family to the USA. One of the difficult things about being an expat is having foreign friends come and go.

 

French friends

 

Ben has been working on his masters in Aix. He will complete it this week. But I hadn't seen Jon since he was two years old. Today they came for lunch plus Jon's girlfriend Iris, they came from the States to visit. 

 

 corey amaro statue garden

 

I love when the past comes to the present and the time doesn't stand in the way. I only wished Chelsea, Sacha and Bonnie, her husband Tom, and their daughter Lesley could have been here as well.

Good memories swirled around, as new memories were planted.

 

French garden jasmine

 

As we shared lunch under the thick canopy of jasmine, nature's umbrella, it started to rain.

The shower brought a delicious cool breeze, the jasmine perfumed us.

And their we enjoyed each other's company.

 

I loved every raindrop, every jasmine flower, every word, every second of gathering those two beautiful young men from my past to this moment.

 

 

 

 

 



Comments

11 responses to “Under the Jasmine”

  1. YOU HAVE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WAY WITH WORDS….and the pictures you paint with them are PRICELESS…I do believe I can smell the sweet rain and jasmine mix all the way over here!

  2. Another beautiful story, as I can smell your jasmine along with you. My patio jasmine was amazing this spring but I believe those blooms are gone by now.

  3. Diogenes

    Looks like a beautiful lunch! How wonderful to be in contact after all those years.

  4. I love how you “say it” . . .
    and the canopy of fragrant Jasmine must have brought memorable sweetness to your time together . . .

  5. what a lovely story you shared here
    and thank you.

  6. How lovely to sit beneath the jasmine- and wrap the new stories in a blanket of fragrance with the memories of all the years before…keeping the threads of friendship alive and pulsing with a heat of deep affection is, I believe, one of your well-developed abilities and practices. The depth and breadth of your life of sweet connections is always a morning gift to my days….thank you for sharing so willingly the beauty in words and photos of your well-lived life.

  7. tammyCA

    As always your words, images and heart are soothing to the soul…thank you!

  8. suzanna

    oh, I just love confederate jasmine, so wonderful…..love it

  9. Patti L

    Blessed are those who cross your path…somehow you fulfilled your passion to minister to the world, even though you left the monastery. You have reached many more and remind us daily of the beauty that surrounds us.

  10. I dream of a life where we eat with friends, ensconced under a jasmine bower, as rain falls, slowly dripping into a centuries old stone water basin.
    Corey, your life is so very beautiful.

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