The scent of frangipanis is threaded through the best memories of my childhood. For many years I didn't even know the fragrance came from the flower - it was the scent of the sun and of the ocean breeze. It was the scent of holidays at my grandmothers house. All mixed up with the salt and the sea the sand it was the scent of summer herself.
Scent is a powerful tool of nostalgia, and the scent of a frangipani always transports me to Darkum... To howling winds and waves crashing against the rocks of the headland outside my window. To my cousin, her hem in her hands, filling her skirt with the milky white and yellow blooms. To my mother floating the flowers in a shallow dish that she sets on the table where we all sit, shaded by an oversized umbrella, to eat fresh prawns on the lawn overlooking the ocean.
Wherever I am in the world the fragrance of a frangipani always takes me home, home to Darkum.
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