How are cheese boxes and honeysuckle vines related?!?!
For me, honeysuckle and cheese boxes are both evocative of creative, childhood play. So indulge me a bit as I set the stage for these two oddly-paired characters.
We were fortunate growing up in Lebanon to have had scrumptious artisinal cheeses as part of our meals. However, for grating and making sauces, we did have a Norwegian, imported, highly processed cheese that came in a rectanglar balsa-type wooden box. This magical wooden box became a staple building block for all kinds of doll furniture, treasure chests, and mini shelves to display my collections.
Honeysuckle, my next character in this story, grew profusely over balconeys, on rooftops, and across stone walls. Nestled in the foothills of Lebanon’s mountains, our home perched solidly along with olive trees, fruit orchards, vegetable crops, and flower gardens.Welcoming guests, the front steps and solid, double, wooden doors were flanked by a waist-high, long planter overflowing with pink wax-leaf geraniums and a huge clay pot with persian carpet coleus. An iron fillagreed gate that always squeeked, opened onto the front balconey stretching the length of the house. Anyone walking up the entrance sidewalk and tiled front steps couldn’t help but inhale the spicey-sweet scent of a climbing ruby-red rose and a pale yellow and white blooming honeysuckle vine.
Oh, how I loved that honeysuckle vine! I can close my eyes and still taste that drop of honeyed nectar on my tongue. We would pull out the stamen of the honeysuckle bloom and ever so gently suck the transluscent sweet pearl of nectar from the bottom of the bloom.
In the warmth of the Mediterranean evening setting sun, we played with our dolls till mom called us in for supper. My barbie dolls did not have a fancy pink plastic mansion with elaborate rooms and scrolled furniture. Nor did they have a stretch-sedan convertible. Instead, we made couches, beds, chairs, kitchen appliances, and vehicles out of those wooden cheese boxes. We raided mom’s stash of sewing scraps, trims, and notions and created our own doll accessories! We used the prolific honeysuckle vine as a treehouse and nestled all our elaborate cheese box creations into the “mansion’s” many honeysuckle-air-freshened vine-rooms!
Who knew that two such divergent characters could occupy a child’s imagination for hours of creative play?
I don’t have a balconey, flat roof, or stone wall these days, but we have built a trellise and planted a coral honeysuckle. It still smells delicious, but I haven’t plucked a bloom and slurped its nectar yet! I don’t have wooden, rectangular, Norwegian cheese boxes anymore. But I do have cardboard velveeta cheese boxes! And I have baskets of quilting scraps, jars of buttons, and rolls of ribbon and trims that my grandchildren use to make things for our cats and their dolls!
The scents and tastes of childhood never fail to put a smile on my face and reaffirm how grateful I am for those magical memories that still tug at my “old lady” heart.
What magical memories are you passing down to your children and grandchildren?
Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children to the next generation.