Lilacs Remembered

I woke this morning remembering waking to the smell of lilacs ablossom outside the window, and wished for that to be true today as well.

A lilac bush grew directly outside the windows of the many-generationed farmhouse where my grandparents lived during my earliest childhood and which--after our whole family traded houses when i was in seventh grade--became my home. As far as I have ever known, that resilient lilac dug and in insistently graced us with her intense will to fragrance our lives for at least four generations of our lives. She blossoms year after year, having endured harsh winters and the sunless side of the house as lives full of joy, challenge, hope, frustration, fear, richness, birth, loss, struggle, delight and death come and go inside the walls; still, she faithfully shows up spring after spring with her green dress and vibrant fragrance.

Waking to the smell of lilacs carries a sentimental sense of rootedness and hopefulness for me; somehow on those days, I can more readily awaken knowing who I am in the universe I inhabit, remembering who I was, where my roots are, where I've been and who I've grown to be.


This morning when I looked out my bedroom window I noticed that the lilac bush across the street is thinking about springing back to life, and remembered....

I should probably make a trip back to the farm soon to visit AND to snatch a few branches from that bush. How cool would it be to have the daughter of that very lilac transplanted here in my yard in the city?