My Love Affair With Lilacs

My boyfriend probably thinks I am crazy, and understandably so. But still...

Every spring since we moved to Colorado in 1995, right around the end of March thru the beginning of May, I waited, captivated by the blooms which, though tiny and furled, would soon open to release the most magical scent, the most beautiful flowers, in colors ranging from pure white to the palest lavender to bright fuchsia and beyond. The blooms would last a month or so, eventually, as all spring flowers do in the arid heat of the Colorado summer, fade, crumple and die. As I sit here writing this today there is a vase full of tiny white lilacs—my favorite; their scent is so sweet. There’s another, larger, vase on the middle of my coffee table. One in the bathroom. Two in my bedroom. I can’t get enough of them. And yes, they droop and die quickly in my vases, no matter how tenderly I try to handle them or how carefully I monitor their fresh water; they very simply need their bushes, the mother plants they were so unkindly snipped from at the giddy greed of my shears.

I don’t remember lilacs in New Jersey, but that’s where Mom remembered them from, and her eyes would grow wide as she told us of these incredible bushes that lie dormant for most of the year and then, for only a short time, burst forth with the most beautifully-scented, heavenly flowers. I was enraptured, and couldn’t wait for the lilacs to start blooming. It was no secret that the relationship between my mother and I was, at best, strained, though while I outwardly maintained my standard-issue adolescent angst, rudeness, brattiness and outright cruelty towards my mother and sister, I inwardly ached for my mother’s approval, my sister’s confidence. The confidence that would grow between Emily and I had to grow from a wary trust, and by the time she began confiding in me I was completely blown away. I was honored and terrified, what do I do now? Oh my God, she actually loves me and respects me and wants my opinion! Oh, shit! But that’s another post, for another day.

My relationship with my mother, on the other hand, was absolutely awful. I cried myself to sleep at night because I couldn’t make her understand where I was coming from, she was totally against me, she always took Emily’s side, she…take your pick of horrible motherly sins, they utterly destroyed me at times. I can’t say for sure because I haven’t asked, but I wonder now, now that I’m an adult—well, more of an adult, anyway—and our relationship has grown into a deeply loving and respectful friendship, if she cried herself to sleep those nights too. Not knowing the answer, I’m still confident it’s probably “yes”.

My mother’s birthday is April 17, prime time for lilac picking. The awesome part about lilac picking is that while many people grow them in their own private lawns and would rather not have them violated by a skinny little teenager with a pair of shears and a heart set on procuring the luscious flowers for her mother’s surprise birthday present, they also grow all over the place, wild. One entire main avenue near our house was nothing but lilac blooms for five or six blocks, and so, on the morning of April 17, I would set my alarm super-early (Mom’s an early riser, so getting anything done before she gets up requires some thoughtful planning in advance) and, by six o’clock in the morning was riding my bicycle along Drake Road in Fort Collins, clipping the beautifully fragrant, silky branches and dropping them into the knapsack I’d brought along for this express purpose. When Mom got up that morning, she was greeted by a sleepy, but smiling, oldest daughter, a gigantic bouquet of lilacs and a Happy Birthday card. She hugged me tight and thanked me and kissed me, and for a moment, everything was okay.

I took advantage of this tactic every year I lived in Fort Collins for Mom’s birthday and then again for Mother’s Day, and she was always delighted, although I’m sure the surprise wore off pretty quickly. And of course they died quickly, drooping and wilting in their vases until they finally had to be discarded, mournfully.

I’m not a typical Boulderite. That is, I ride my bike absolutely everywhere, but it’s because I have no other option, save my feet or the bus (which is absurdly expensive), or maybe a taxi (even more expensive). I eat well because I work for a natural-foods company. I take Bikram yoga classes because I love them…that’s all, pure and simple. But I also love Coca-Cola and junk food and until recently was a smoker and imbibed alcohol on a fairly regular basis (these two habits have been cutoff entirely…smoking for good, drinking for awhile, at least, if not forever). So the conclusion I’m about to draw here digs a bit deep for parallels, so you’ll have to excuse what I see as completely obvious, but will probably come off as sounding like your standard-issue Boulderite fruitcake, yet another resident of the city known as “ten square miles surrounded by reality”. But I don’t really care. It’s my blog, and I get to say whatever I want here, and if you’re reading this, you can form your own opinions. Anyway. At this point in my life I see a unique relationship between the lilacs I would pick for her, and the relationship we struggled through during my teenage years. When removed from its “mother” or the mother plant, the lilac draws its nutrients however it can: a vase filled with water, the ground if it’s been carelessly torn down. But without the mother plant, the thriving organism that gives it life, allows its blooms to unfold and open to the sun, strong, hardy blooms ready to take on the world, or at least, produce magnificent scents and beautiful flowers until they grow dormant again until the next year. This relationship, looking back, was not unlike my relationship with my mother. The further away I got from my mother, the more I wilted, the more I drooped, fell apart, because angry and depressed and enraged and gave up. But the moments that we were connected, the times that I felt our closeness so tangibly it made me cry, were the times I felt the strongest, the most myself, the best about my life and my happiness.

So, call me a crazy Boulderite. I don’t care. My love affair with lilacs will continue for the rest of my life. As will my love for my mother.