Ultra Violets

In the beginning was Vi(olet), an elderly nanny with a parakeet named Charlie.In her hallway hung portraits of three men.She told me they were her husbands, who had all died. I thought, "What good luck! To have three husbands! But what tragedy that they all died at once!"Years later, my parents explained to my confused self that it was only allowed for one man to marry one woman and vice versa. I protested that Vie had had 3 husbands at once. They broke to me the tragic news that her husbands had been in succession, not at once. Burst my bubble right there.

Violets are modest creatures (not ones to have three husbands at once), delicately beautiful and frustratingly ephemeral. In all their violet wisdom, they are here for a very limited time only.

Violets thrive in woodsy spots on drippy, draining hillsides.They love the shade behind a compost bin and the leaky slope beneath an apple tree. Find a trail up the south side of a hill, and as you duck beneath the trees, there is a mass of violets on the muddy hillside. They succumb to summer heat, so find them now, and sup of your little piece of ecstasy.

The violet leaf is, not surprisingly, shaped like a heart, with tiny-toothed edges.One leaf per stem, and several stems from one spot. The five-petaled, floppy "flowers" come in purple, yellow, white, cream, blue or any combination of these. Identify clean violets with 100% certainty using a reliable guide/book.

Violets are never violet. The authority on color, Roy G. Biv, asserts that violet has a shorter wavelength than blue at 420-380 nm, but is Not a combination of blue and red (that would be purple, which Is the color of many violets).

All violet flowers, including pansies and johnny-jump-ups, are edible. The so-called "African violet" is in another family all together, so don't get excited about eating your windowsill plants for breakfast.

The inscrutable, unavailable sweetness of violet flowers, which always leaves me begging for more, is explained by an ionone compound that these flowers give off along with their scent. This compound disconcertingly handicaps your sense of smell (Wikipedia.com). The deeper you inhale, the less scent you get.

Violets, the quintessential temporal tease, enforce a respect for pleasure's fleeting nature. One second you smell the faint joy of viola odorata and the next, it's gone, despite cramming the nosegay up your nose. In grasping and clinging is loss. Vi's parakeet, Charlie, taught me this too, with her eggs. Open hand: open to receive, to give, to let go. Clenched fist: for breaking stems (a necessity), noses, and little parakeet eggs during 2nd grade show-and-tell.

The flowers can be gathered without much worry about the plant's ability to propagate. These tease-scented flowers are exuberant show-offs, but the true flowers, according to Susun Weed (Healing Wise), are humble, seedy, autumn flowers.

Everyone recommends candying the show-off flowers, a laborious process involving pricey accoutrements (according to the directions I read).I would rather eat them like candy (uncandied), toss them with my dandelion-green salads, or pour boiling water over them for a purple tea.

Most information on violet edibility focuses on the flowers, but the lesser known fact about wild violets is that their leaves are an edible source of vitamin C and vitamin A. The leaves taste bland and a little sweet, perfect for adding to potent dandelion and wispy chickweed salads. Toss in some flowers and you have an extremely nutritious and beautiful salad fit for the gods. They also thicken soups.

Susun Weed recommends drinking a violet leaf infusion (pour boiling water over dried violet leaves, cover and let steep for 4 hours) for headaches, "fevered fantasies," and anxiety. Recent research confirms that violets contain, salicylic acid, a natural aspirin, "which substantiates its use for centuries as a medicinal remedy for headache, body pains and as a sedative," (altnature.com).

What violets bring to me is spiritual, sensual and edible. The scent of a heart full of love and loss. Flowers smelled, un-smelled, and devoured. Husbands loved and died. Eggs laid and crushed. Spring salads: glorious, gorgeous and unavailable tomorrow.Carpe diem, with a open hand.