Magnolia Alley

Magnolia Alley is a short stretch of road in an affluent stucco ghetto, where each house competes with the other for the showiest of Spring flower shows. The neighbours on each side of the street have all planted magnolia trees in their front gardens, each one streaked with the same paintbrush strokes of pink, all bursting into hundreds of candle flames on bare grey candelabras at the same time each year.

It’s one of the first markers of Spring on my pedestrian commute and each day in February and early March I stare at the buds, willing them to open. Those embryonic flowers, like baby mice, always remind me of childhood longing. Compellingly soft and delicate, they were my mother’s favourite children and small fingers were retracted quickly under her gaze.

But this year I am denied my annual wonder and nostalgia. A few weeks have passed without me here and the annual show is drawing to its straggly end. I am bereft. The blossoms falling away, camouflaged by young green leaves.