把每一次都當是最後一次
有沒有一件事，你每年都想做，卻每年都說留到明年？
踏進秋冬，我們常談起的植物多數是松、冷杉與柏，這些都是多年生。但香青蘭沒有這回事。作為一年生植物，它春天發芽，七八月開花，秋天一到，整株就會枯死，只留下種子。
它不會有第二個夏天。所以，它不為明年留下任何東西。
我們聞到的那股香，就是它一生裡最盛放那幾個星期的全部。
香青蘭的氣味，是刮開檸檬皮那一下的亮酸，中段轉出花香的蜜甜，尾段留著一點乾燥草本的涼意。明亮，直接，就像把夏天最盛的那幾日，完完整整地收進了瓶子裡。
我們之所以會留力，往往是因為心裡假設還有下一次。
而「下一次」從來只是一個假設，不是一個承諾。
香青蘭知道自己只有一季，所以沒有把力氣留在下一次，而是在這一季中用盡全力去盛開。
如果近日你正因為猶豫不決，而把想做的事一再推遲，不妨在香氣中停一停。
願你在這抹明亮爽朗的氣息裡明白，下一次不一定會來，就把每一次都當成最後一次，用力盛放吧。
以香為語，安在當下。
Once is all you get.
Is there something you mean to do every year, and every year say you will leave until next year?
As autumn turns towards winter, the plants we speak of most are pines, firs and cypresses, and all of them are perennial. Moldavian dragonhead has nothing of the sort. Being an annual, it comes up in spring, flowers in July and August, and once autumn arrives the whole plant dies, leaving only seed.
There will be no second summer for it. And so it keeps nothing back for next year.
The scent we smell is the whole of those few weeks when it was most fully in flower.
Its scent is the bright sourness of lemon peel just scored open, turning in the middle to the honeyed sweetness of flowers, with a dry herbal coolness left at the close. Bright, direct, as though the fullest days of summer had been gathered whole into a bottle.
If we keep our strength in reserve, it is usually because somewhere in ourselves we assume there will be another time.
And "another time" has only ever been an assumption, never a promise.
Moldavian dragonhead knows it has one season and no more, so it kept no strength back for a next time, and gave the whole of it to flowering in this one.
If you have lately been hesitating, and putting off again and again the thing you mean to do, you might pause a while in the scent.
May this bright, open note leave you knowing that a next time is not promised. Take every time as the last, and flower with everything you have.
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.