My life thus far can be defined by the fragrance of a simple white flower, compressed and liquified by Marc Jacobs into a beautiful small bottle sitting on my dresser. To me, this perfume is more than “fresh and feminine notes of wild strawberry, velvety violet petals and plus gardenia and jasmine”; it is the scent of my blossoming. 

Daisies are the smell of a new consciousness; a girl on her birthday, the first spritz of her first bottle of perfume, smoke from her twelve blown-out candles disappearing in wisps in the air. The lingering smell settling on the girl’s wrist was a seed being planted in the growing meadow of a middle school girl already too big for her britches. It is the honor of your mother saying, “Now you can smell like me, gorgeous girl.” The aroma of this clear, pure flower is the beginning of the idea of becoming something more than a girl with scraped knees and short tangled blonde curls.

Daisies are the smell of trepidation, an outlier in the new, crowded halls of your first day of middle school, your new binders clutched in your hands and your neck dripping with daisies. It is the smell of attempted first impressions, of hope that that one boy will notice you this year, drawn in by the smell of your new perfume.

Daisies are the smell of a dark school gymnasium, sitting awkwardly in a new red dress in the bleachers and waiting for that one boy on the bleachers at the opposite side of the gym to walk over and ask for a dance during Katy Perry’s “Firework”. It is a small green stem, attempting to break its way through the tough soil to the sun on the other side.

Daisies are the smell of a movie theater, and the feeling of your sweaty palms holding tightly to the equally moist palm of that one boy. It is the elation of “You smell nice,” whispered in your ear in the back seat of that one boy’s mom’s mini-van, chocolate ice cream on your tongue and a constant grin on your face. It is the first blossoming of a new creation from the Earth.

Daisies are the smell of newfound rebellion, with salt in your hair and the wind on your face as you hastily apply the daisies to your neck and quietly slip out of the door of the hotel room. It is the familiar scent loitering in the hall behind you as you race on tip-toe down the deck’s stairs, the giggles of your friends ringing in your ears as you dance about on the abandoned deck of the cruise ship. The Atlantic stars twinkle over your head like spotlights, because, in this moment, you the star of the show. It is your first kind of necessary and harmless teenage rebellion that leaves you flowing with gratitude for your one young and invincible life. It is small, weak white petals crowning the plain green stem.

Daisies are the smell of a new, stiff cheer uniform in the halls of yet another new school, yet another new stage in your life to experience anew. It is the sound of “Nice to meet you” and “Can I sit here?”. It is the straightening of a stem, a once spineless young sprout beginning to stand tall in its new surroundings.

Daisies are the smell of the walk home from his house alone, tears welling in your eyes. Hundreds of pictures of you and that one boy being burned one by one in your family’s fire pit, daisies mingled with another kind of smoke- that of a breakup instead of a birthday. It is the reassuring scent you are surrounded by when your mother rests your head on her shoulder, your tears staining her favorite blue sweater and her not caring about it at all. It is the reminder that she understands, the woman who passed down to you her bottle of daisies, what heartbreak feels like. It is your roots digging into the ground, soaking up all the nourishment they can.

Daisies are the smell of one little girl’s adolescence; her admiration, her hope, her conviction, her desire, her restlessness, her heartbreak, and- most importantly- her re-creation. Daisies are the purity of growth from a miniscule brown seed of a girl to a towering, pure, yet strong flower of a young woman.

Daisies are the smell of growing up.