More fragrance, than sight, honeysuckle takes me far back in my autobiography. Of late, the aroma has switched my memory levers via the ‘twiney, viney clusters of sweetly scented flowers’ in our backyard and along the service road on my morning jaunt.

The aroma transports me to tromping around as a kid with cousins and chums. Most of all, the scent of honeysuckle carries me to the backyard of my childhood home, back corner, partially hidden behind the garage. The fence overhang of honeysuckle created a shadowy, ‘scentual’ space.

From age 5 to 12 or so, I considered that place variously as a hideout, fort, camp, or club. Don’t think I knew the word retreat then. Two or three of us protected the neighborhood from various marauding bad guys...Nazis, Yankees, rustlers, and such. We would make rules for our secret exclusive club like ‘no girls’...as if any would want to be in the club...or no little kids...as if we were all that big.

Most of all, my honeysuckle history reminds me of my singularity. I spent lots more time out there and otherwise by myself, than plurality of hanging out with pals. Looking back, I recognize that honeysuckle corner as my primordial first study.

Time enfolded sifting through baseball cards, playing with cat-eye marbles, counting my cigar-box collection of new pencils, often with a banana sandwich lunch, wax-paper packed by my mother. Most notable, I begin my reading thing: comic books, young readers biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Madame Curie, Abraham Lincoln...

Why all this - one?

For one, it has to do with the amazing means of grace of our five senses. These physical capacities are enspirited ways by which God gets the abundance of life to and through us.

About smell: best we know, our sense of smell goes deeper, faster into our brains than the other four. Think limbic, primal brain. The olfactory may be our closest connection with other sentient critters. Faster than we can think, smells affect our thoughts, moods, and feelings. Aromas unleash memories we may not recall until they show up while jogging down a road or standing in a backyard miles and years away from our original Camp Honeysuckles.

Wow. Don’t get me started. There is an endless list of scents for humans. The estimate is 10,000 for us. Pretty cool, though likely 40,000 for our pups. (Jack, I wish I had been more patient on our walks as you modeled the joy of slow, leisurely sniffing.)

Smell memories are customized to the array of people and places of our lives: Perfume. Popcorn. Fresh sheets. Babies. Foods. Pets. Christmas trees...the unique fragrance of beloved ones. You have many you can add.

I will also leave to you those certain aroma memories we all have, that bring back hard or bittersweet times.

Yet over all, fragrance memories help us be more aware of all going on in our lives along the way, the then’s enriching our now’s. My history of honeysuckle does not take me back so much as it takes me more deeply and fully into the abundant blessings of now.

Why all this - two?

For two. My history of honeysuckle reminds me of the persistent mix of singularity and plurality in our lives. Of late, I have been exploring what I am calling a generative solitude with ourselves and a generous solidarity with others that come with our gift of life. The capacities for being at home with ourselves and at ease with others are distinguishable but inseparable as heads and tails sides of a coin.

As we continue to lift up those ‘out there’ at risk serving, many of us ‘staying in’ are recognizing there can be too much alone-ness and too little of it...as well as too much togetherness and not enough of it.

I hope to have more that is helpful to share about the dance of generative solitude and generous solidarity later. For now, use the more alone time you may have as a chance to be a better friend of you. Nurture the memories of the sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells that make you, you. Such will make you and me better company for those who have to put up with us.

P.S. Remember pulling the delicate filaments out of the fragrant honeysuckle blooms and the sweet taste of that tiny drop of nectar on the ends? Doxology for it all.