Lavender

The narrator of Marcel Proust's epic work may have found his muse in literature's most famous tea cake, but it was his mother who supplied it. She's the one who quietly serves him that madeleine on a rainy night when he comes home depressed and convinced he has failed in life. From the baptism in tea of that buttery, shell-shaped sweet spring memories of a small French town that fill seven volumes of the epic Remembrance of Things Past (also known as In Search of Lost Time). "His mother is really the one who makes him give birth to his creation, and she has done it in the most typically motherly way," said Armine Kotin Mortimer, a professor of French at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who co-edited a collection of essays on Proust.

A Memorable Place An island with a power to move people By Connie Le Mire SPECIAL TO THE SUN Recently I came across a book titled A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos, by Peter France. I had been searching for the words to describe what I had experienced there during a trip to Greece three years ago, and found them in the pages of this book. "The island of Patmos is a place of power. It changes people. They come there for a brief summer visit and find themselves returning, year after year, for the rest of their lives.

You can be a Bohemian for a day on Sunday at the 11th annual SoWeBohemian Festival -- southwest Baltimore's way of telling the town what the neighborhood is all about. The area around Hollins Market attracts residents who are highly creative if not high-tax bracket.Artist and designer Kim Brown will have a booth where she will be selling her own jewelry, screen-printed clothes and found-fashion items. She says she makes only what she likes, so her efforts never go to waste and are just as likely to wind up in her closet.

OVETT, Miss. -- Redbud trees are abloom in the Mississippi hills, their sprightly lavender flowers enticing spring from the pine-dark forest. But another lavender hue in the woods outside this country town has become a harbinger of a different sort.Here, where men hunt raccoons at night with prized hounds and women fold backyard pecans into sweet pies, tree trunks along a stretch of rural road are girdled in lavender paint. They lead to the lavender gate of Camp Sister Spirit, the home of a lesbian couple whose plan to open a feminist education and cultural retreat center on their land has brought preachers from pulpits, grandmothers from kitchens and a menacing presence from the placid hills.

BOSTON -- Go figure this one. It's barely a week since Congress voted down same-sex marriage and killed a bill forbidding job discrimination against homosexuals. But the buzz in gay America is whether the sitcom star of ''Ellen'' will come out of the closet.I can't decide if we treat mass culture too seriously or if we shrink our real concerns down to the size of the boob tube. Either way we end up with every social issue whittled into sitcom shape.The ''Ellen'' flap is an echo of the moment four years ago when a serious national debate about unwed single mothers came to a head over the sitcom pregnancy of Murphy Brown.

It's autumn, and the garden's bathed in a whole new light: softer, grayer and especially flattering to silver plants, otherwise known as horticulture's ultimate drama queens. They demand attention whatever the season, but seem to glow this time of year. You see it in the frosty spires of Russian sage, the fluttery underside of butterfly bush and the somber stalks of meadow rue. From barely white to gleaming blue, silver plants move from brash and radiant in August to demure and luminous in the fall.

High Point, N.C. -- Alexander Julian is rarely at a loss for words. But when the famed menswear designer was asked to come up with a generic label for his newest venture -- furniture -- he was stumped.First he tried "traditional modernism" as a way to describe his Home Colours collection, which combines elements of formal 18th-century antiques with more rustic painted and wicker pieces and colorful, contemporary fabrics that might have come from one of his suits or ties.That phrase didn't go over well at Universal Furniture, the High Point manufacturer that is producing the line.

Maryland's unrelenting drought has gardeners questioning the wisdom of planting thirsty annuals and perennials. Autumn gardeners should be equally cautious and consider putting in drought-tolerant perennials, like rock garden plants, for next year. What exactly is a rock garden plant? It doesn't have to be an alpine plant, according to Baldassare Mineo, one of America's pre-eminent rock garden experts and the author of Rock Garden Plants: A Color Encyclopedia (Timber Press, 1999). Rather, he says, "A rock garden plant looks good growing among rocks."

Craving a summer treat that's icy, sweet, and a bit exotic? Then make gourmet ice pops your go-to cooler for the sunny season. Ice pops aren't exactly new - remember the juice and Kool-Aid bars Mom would freeze in tiny paper cups? - but these cold confections on a stick are getting a zippy culinary makeover. Artificial grape and cherry flavors were once the standard-bearers. Today's ice pop varieties are bursting with fresh fruit, veggies, herbs, spices, and even spirits that evoke happy hour.

PEOPLE are just beginning to "feel out" the new light rail line. But for those who live to the north and work downtown, it's a splendid way to commute, save gas and help save the environment.Many commuters are leaving the trains at Lexington Mall (at Howard Street) and walking the three short blocks east to offices on Charles. These three blocks of West Lexington, which many commuters are seeing for the first time, provide a 1992 sampling of Baltimore's African-American culture.But 30 years ago . . .These blocks were street, not mall, and vehicular traffic helped to create the confused, cacophonous world that it was. It was a churning mix of people, streetcars, cars and vendors (shopping bags, roasted chestnuts, hot peanuts)