It is true, the old adage:
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
heaven.”
But this year, the seasons seem out of sync. The lilacs came early. I was not ready. One must be properly prepared for their
annual return. Lilac season caught me
unaware.
Lilac blossoms are tiny delicacies and infused with a
perfume scent both distinct and nostalgic.
Even blindfolded, one could not confuse the fragrance with any other
floral.
I think lilacs must have figured greatly in Vivaldi’s “Four
Seasons,” with their honorable subtlety.
They are a symbol of the deep perfection of life.
But lilacs don’t always arrive on schedule, like the Ides of
March, which, with profound regularity, arrive promptly on the 15th
of March.
This year, lilac season was premature, and too soon gone.
I suppose it is a matter of simple Divine Befuddlement, a
cosmic disruption to keep us mortals from thinking that miracles are a
convenience of mathematical dependability.
Perhaps we’d become bored in a world of uniformity, casualties of
emotional anorexia.
I don’t know. But I
don’t think it is ever wise to fashion plans and dreams based on assumptions
that can become predatory. Experience is
an exacting teacher.
Nevertheless, I embraced the early miracle, and each morning
on my daily walk, with logical simplicity and in a scent-induced stupor, I
gathered whole branches of lilacs from bushes that were left with a gaping
central cavity, nearly hollowed by the theft.
And I arranged them in my vases.
I felt no guilt. I
felt no remorse or regret. I committed
no offense. I violated no sanctity. I am
no renegade. I was disconnected with
conscience, and pilfered with reckless abandon. In fact, I felt a most
disturbing state of satisfaction, my integrity intact. Credit my own flagrant
passive defiance.
I babbled my conviction that lilacs are a conduit of wisdom,
designed to swaddle us with courage and wholeness. There’s so much humanity in the love of
lilacs. And we all need comfort.
I secretly bless those gardeners who plant this majestic
flower and offer a place of order and rest to the feeble and infirm, and those early-morning
passers-by in need of a balm.
Man was created that he might have joy…and memories. Sustained sorrow is exhausting. Lilacs bring a two-week sabbatical of grace
and anesthetic respite.
It is mysterious how comfort arrives.
Irises (irisi?) have replaced the lilacs.
I don’t steal Irises.
I have my standards.
When lilacs bloom, the world seems to return to its proper
axis, and the sacred rhythm of life is restored.
Long after they have left, we remember…and savor the
pleasure we know is unique and ephemeral.
