In one sense a rose is any one particular moment in time. It is any portion of time which you remember or can look back on as nearly independent from the rest of your life. Smelling a rose may be as simple and basic as taking a moment to realize that you are actually there, at that particular time (there being that station in life- more or less).
To break down the rose/ life parallel further, life may be looked at as a whole garden of individual rose plants. Each rose plant is in possession of its own actual rose flowers and subsequently petals. The individual plants can represent a segment of your life and each plant naturally has flowers, which are more specific events in that part of your life. Additionally, each individual flower is comprised of small petals, which represent specific moments in your life.
To visually break this comparison down further:
- GARDEN: Life and all of its contents. This contains everything you've ever experienced.
- ROSE BUSH: A particular time or segment of your life. (High school, deployments, illnesses, ect)
- ROSE FLOWERS: A specific place in time of that segment in your life (Port-call in Panama, finals week, a road trip)
- ROSE PETAL: A short instant or memory from that specific place in time (moment before you hit the water from a high jump, the smell of pretty flowers, feeling the first roll of the sea under the Gate).
It may go without saying, but not all rose bushes are equal in size or in appearance (or smell). Some bushes may have many beautiful flowers full of vibrant petals, representing a good and strongly remembered portion of your life. Other rose bushes however may only have a few withered flowers or be of a different color.
Naturally, you can do what you will with any particular rose, its associated bush or the entire garden of plants (your memory). However, when it comes to smelling the roses I think that pertains to what you do at that moment in time, particularly taking a few seconds to realize where you are and what is going on in your life.
