I am now traveling west. I have left the Spanish countryside and am now driving west into the Algarve of Portugal. I cannot see the ugly, underlying branches of the Retamas Blancas that line the road. It is Spring in Portugal and the Retamas Blancas are enrobed in white blossoms instead. When they are not enrobed in white blossoms, the Retamas Blancas are like the waving, withered arms of supplicating widows. The blossoms smell sweetly in this time of blooming.  I’d like to pick some, but I drive west doggedly without stopping. The sweet, white blossoms are like young brides before time and life have their effect. They will fall to the ground soon. The green of the branches will seem to fade away, but they will still be living …as if they are dry tumble weed that cannot move …planted in the same stony place year after year after interminable year waiting for the brief time to look like a bride …and then …fade to waving, desolate creatures by the side of the sea.

It is I who writes about the Retamas Blancas …not my mother.  My mother writes about the Mimosa.  The Mimosa is abundant yellow pouring out onto the road. The Mimosa has an elusive fragrance. My mother loves the elusive fragrance. It is why she loves the Mimosa. The abundance of flowers with an elusive fragrance causes a yearning in my mother. The yearning in my mother is beautiful. The yearning in my mother is the distilled fragrance of the elusive.

I am still traveling west. The Retamas Blancas are a bitterness in me that is not in my mother. My mother has only the yearning of the distilled fragrance of the elusive. My mother has given me the yearning of the distilled fragrance of the elusive …but I have the bitter strength of the Retamas Blancas in me, too.

The fragrance of flowers will be my mother’s courage. How can a delicate flower have courage, you ask. Even the rose will bloom after the frost …it’s petals burned by the cold …and the narcissus will push up through the snow. This is my answer to you. This is my answer about a delicate flower’s courage. My mother has that kind of courage. She has given me that courage, too. But I will also have the tough strength that comes of bitterness.

Someone will always take care of that vulnerable courage that is my mother. In the years of my father, she will look to him …the father I do not want to think about as I am traveling northwest to Sagres …then, she will look to me. She will dress me and feed me. She will wash me and curl my hair …but I will take care of my mother’s yearning because that yearning of the distilled fragrance of the elusive that is a vulnerable courage is a delicate treasure worth far more than any anguish that will travel with both of us down through the years …and, later, I will just take care of my mother.

I will be able to take care of my mother, because I have that bitter strength that will see us both through to the end.

Should I be thankful that no one has ever needed to take care of the yearning for the distilled fragrance of the elusive that is a vulnerable courage in me?