The lesser periwinkle is so called “because it is smaller than its close relative, the greater periwinkle.”
Like the little lavender-blue flower we found at our feet below the locks attached to the fence that proclaimed forever love, she is the shortest of the three girls – her “close relatives” – her daughter and granddaughter.
Like the locks on the fence there is among them a forever love expressed across thousands of miles as evidenced in the ‘just because’ every day phone calls back and forth.
Not surprisingly, “womanhood, love, and pleasant recollections” are symbolized by the lesser periwinkle, and fond memories likewise are recalled among these periwinkle girls.
In Ukraine, periwinkle would be placed alongside cribs of sleeping infants to keep them alive and safe. For her part, she recalled carrying her little sleeping infant periwinkle granddaughter up the stairs in the laundry basket.
The French dubbed it ‘Violette des sorciers’ or Sorcerer’s Violet, hinting at a mystical edge.
“A mystery to me,” she said of her daughter, the dark haired one in her embrace, who, when little and dressed in her Sunday best, could not be found when the time came to leave for church and only after scouring about for the little periwinkle, there she was, out in the yard, digging with a spoon in a pile of dirt, in no time at all having created tunnels through her little mountain, mud splattered on her face, in her hair, and on her dress.
As the word periwinkle is said to mean “entwine” or “bind” so it is with these three, so closely mingled with each other that it is very difficult to separate them.
As it is and should be.
Among the periwinkle girls.
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