Lilac

  When I entered my shop the other day a memory came to light. For upon my desk laid crushed and forgotten a sprig of lilacs. My partner had plucked them from the bushes just now in bloom and in his haze had placed them carelessly upon my desk. They had just been something to smell for the moment along his walk to the shop and having finished their purpose were dropped upon my desk while he attended other things. Forgotten and forlorn.

  Picking them up I could sense their crushed scent still strong wafer upon the air. Bringing them to my nose I drank in their pungent scent still fresh and clean. I closed my eyes and was no longer within the dark confines of the shop. 

  I was again but a young girl laying upon the freshly cut lawn under the lilac trees at my grandmother's home. My home. Once again I was looking up through the sprigs of lilacs just in bloom and the light blue sky. The young girl that I was watched the bees buzz around the small flowers that looked like pale lavender popcorn. The faint scent of lilacs falling lightly upon the Spring breeze mixing with the smells of the freshly mowed grass. 

  Around the trunks of the lilac trees my grandmother had planted crocuses, bluebells, a few tulips and lily of the valley. All those scent mixed upon the air and blend into a spring perfume that no human could bottle and sell. I remember the smell of fresh turned earth as my mother weeded the flower beds and the white snow fall of the Queen Anne cherry tree's petals as they coated the ground. Promising a full crop of cherries in just a month or two. 

  I handed my grandmother a bunch of lilacs newly cut from the trees. She brings them up to her face and breaths in the scent and tells me of her youth ---

  The again I'm back in the shop. Taking yet another whiff of that strong dying scent of lilacs I go back into my childhood memories. 

The fairy beauty of feathery azaleas and bushes of rhododendrons as bumble bees bury themselves deep with in their pink to salmon or neon purple to deep maroon blossoms. I remember walking the gardens and seeing all the colors of spring echo in the riot of flowers decorating my grandmother's yard. 

  The much later I remember my husband (not yet but soon to be) walking next to me. Along the lane of flower beds with the crown of Spring flowers. He plucks a sprig of white lilacs for me. I put my head upon his shoulder as we walk down the lane. Sharing the scent of lilacs with him on our date. Watching the sun set in colors that rival the Spring flowers. We kiss ---

  Again I am back in the shop breathing in the last scent of the sprig of lilacs and then I'm once again with my eldest daughter when she was only three year old daughter one bright Spring morning. I was bringing in clippings from the only lilac tree on lot we were renting. She pulls my pant leg and I bend down. She buries her face in the bunches of lilac blossoms and drank in deeply it's Spring fresh smell. Then she asks me if there were lilacs when I was a little girl ---

  The scent thins out and I'm back in the shop. Miles and years from my youth. It's too bad lilacs don't bloom all year long but just for two brief weeks in Spring. Sadly I put aside the now faintly smelling sprig of dying lilacs. Their last bluster of scent spent on my memories. 

  They say you can buy any scent now a day in the Mall and I've smelled what they call lilac. It does smell close but not like the real thing. It does not bring back the memories as if you were living them all over again. The short sweet memories of youth that keep us going through the hard times. It only smells like a flower, nice but does not have the pull of dreams.

  My husband and I bought a house with a big back yard. He's promised to plant lilacs.

By Annette Rust copyright 1998-2003

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