Lilacs

They say smell is the sense most closely linked to memory.  It’s hard to tell if it is true, but every time I smell lilacs, I am transported.  First it is the perfect balance of perfume and nature that those delicate purple blossoms seem to capture with ease, and then it is the remembering of childhood adventuresn that really takes me somewhere - into memory.
But as with all bouquets of flowers and all of the times you try to bring nature or something living into your house, it is both a reminder of springtime and the innocence of the past and a reminder that death is soon around the corner.

I don’t know how old I was, or really many details, but when I was smaller than 11 and old enough to be taken outside for a late night adventure with my mother, when it was springtime she would allow me to accompany her on a vigil of sorts, or rather a cat burglar mission to the tress in the neighbourhood where the lilacs grew.  Armed with gardening shears and a stealth attitude, and probably dressed in something fabulous, my mother would head out on her mission and I would silently tag along.  She knew just where the trees where, just who’s were in bloom first and just who was mostly likely asleep or in front of the blue glow of television while she committed her act.  It all seems very mysterious to me, young enough to not know about plans and cars and noticing things in the world beyond by own scope.

She would clip enough to get the smell, but not so many as to be noticed and during the entirety of the adventure she would inhale deeply.  This is what I really remember.  The smelling in addition to the smells.

Those lilacs would dress our table, until the blossoms fell off, evoking ee cummings poems and would remind my mother of another story, this one about roses and death.

Years later, life on the west coast means I don’t have Lilacs - they don’t seem to grow with the same abundance, or I live in the wrong neighbourhoods, or the places I’ve chosen to call home are temperate enough that the residents do not need a call of spring that penetrates the nostrils and reminds us that life is coming and that winter is really behind us.

And one afternoon, so pregnant I a was laying sideways on the massage table, my therapist had a bouquet of Lilacs in her office.  She sang their praises and said they reminded her of spring time in Baltimore.  The smell transported me to my youth, to my mother and to the feeling of being reminded that something dark is over and something sweet is here.  I was almost ready to not be pregnant, but not quite ready to be a mother. Something about the natural cycle, evokes by that smell and my own memories of being small, seemed to give me the nudge that I needed.  

I looked to have lilacs in my house, so I could float on the smell while Milo was born, but I couldn't find them.  

This year, lilacs bouquets were for sale at Whole Foods, how could I not shell out 15$ and how could I not wince with remembering getting them for  free.  The smell was so good, perfume, sweet, grassy, high notes and wood. I almost cried with each deep inhalation.  I wept for the memories, for now being the mother, for not living somewhere I could steal and get away with it and because I knew the smell won’t last.  It is only a matter of days that you get to float on lilac scent.  And then the water darkens, the petals droop and fall and the now mess gets hauled to the compost pile.  

Life is short, blossoms seem to be the annual reminder to inhale while you can.

Now that the season is over, I only have the memories and the story, while that is plenty, but it really takes the smell to bring it all back.