Lilac stories

proofs and promises

Lilacs are one of my favourite sensory experiences on this earth and so I will share some lilac stories…

The farm I lived on from 7-18 had a single giant lilac bush, as many places from that era of the last century do, a consistent seasonal proof of how good it is to be alive solved for each year of that season of my life when such impressions are seared deep into the important places in one's self.

And in the place I lived before that, I was to learn maybe the most important lesson of my young life: that some things are so beautiful as to encourage and allow the breaking of the rules, and lilacs are absolutely one of these things.

I had just learned to ride my banana seated bike in more or less straight lines with only occasional zigzags out into the street, and used this magical new conveyance to convey me somewhat far from my house so as to obtain a large bouquet of these fragrantly fantastic beauties for my mum on mother's day. I did not quite consider that this act would provide cold hard evidence that I had broken one of the Very Big Rules; my mother was conflicted, I was so grounded (two weeks!), because consistency, but it was not quite unspoken that this was maybe a good thing indeed.... a large bouquet of lilacs graced the place of pride in the center of our kitchen table for some time.

And then some decades later in Vancouver it was a year particularly flush with lilacs, for which I not need travel far, as my neighbour never trims her rangy lilac bush which ranges right over the fence boundary and into the holes in my face.

And then the lilacs were done, as always, such a much-too-soon and bittersweet thing that brings to mind the certain death of all things beautiful large and small, and also promises one a riot of mock orange which itself then promises many other things like long lazy summer days and the smell and feel of autumn and possibly a lot of autumns and maybe many more things and so on as well.

With that little sadness and maybe gladness in my heart, I left town to visit a friend in Nelson, apparently under the conveyance of a time machine. In that city, the lilacs were one or two days ahead of the full flight of their most glorious glory. In that city, there are lilacs everywhere, untended, unkempt, like wild things that somehow thrive in human cities and pavement fuck you very much (and these all the proper pale lilacs of yore, not those pretty plastic purple white ersatz new city clones that smell of emptiness and rob one of the proper experience of reality).

Each day I rode my bike all about town, filled my face full, and think maybe I now know something of the joy of dogs unleashed and free to whip about and smell ALL OF THE THINGS there are to smell. I am not a dog, and so was smelling only lilac things (only, HA), but I believe that I now share this deep dog wisdom that many days contain within them many simple proofs of how good it is to be in this world at all.

The fence lilacs here are wee and weak and timid and few this year, but still they tell their lilac story so maybe I will go smell that story right now