When I started this newsletter about making life good and meaningful, I turned first to lilacs to create the logo. Not only are they a gloriously-scented mass of tiny beautiful flowers, every spring they teach me an important lesson.
Lilacs are fleeting—they bloom for about two weeks, if you are lucky. They don’t last long in a vase, either.* They are the sweetest flash in a pan you ever could imagine.
And I love them so.
Lilacs remind me that every day I don’t go stick my face in a blooming bush and breathe deep is a day I missed out. Every day I don’t have a small bunch of flowers by my bed to smell first thing in the morning is an opportunity lost. These tiny, ephemeral blooms.
If the Japanese love cherry blossoms because the delicate petals are a reminder that life is fleeting, then I love lilacs because they are a reminder to take advantage of it all. To be a glutton for this beauty, this fragrance. They remind me of the Julia Child quote: “Life itself is the proper binge.”
Because life may be a binge, but it is also full of other things—work and responsibilities and bad news and war and taxes and laundry and it’s so very easy to skip the flowers, to not go for the walk, to miss the sunset. It’s so easy to tell myself I’ll do it tomorrow, and then the next day.
But lilac season’s days are numbered, I don’t want to miss any of them.
This is true more broadly. Our days are numbered—none of know how many. I want to make sure I fill up as many as I can. I want to notice the beauty, the pleasures, the opportunities for good. The sucky things in life are often non-negotiable; I want to pour delight into all the other places I can.
This week, that looks like lilacs. For you it might look like something else entirely.
Whatever it is, I hope you breathe deep and enjoy every moment 💜
*If you are a lilac lover and sad that they wilt so quickly in a vase, take a hammer and give the bottom of their stems a few whacks to break them up a bit. It allows the flowers to access more water and last longer.
I feel exactly the same way about lilacs. I have a vague memory as a child of going with my family to a "lilac farm" to buy lilacs for my mother. She'd never had lilacs in the house before and I asked why we were making this special trip to specifically buy these flowers (not in those words exactly... but imagine this question phrased by a 7 year old). She said she loved lilacs because they were HER mother's favorite flowers. So, I love them not only because they were my grandmother's favorite (and beloved by my own mother) but also for all the reasons you mentioned -- their aroma, their beauty, and for the very precious nature of their short season. I actually stopped at a store this morning to see whether they had any lilacs in stock, but the store was closed due to a burst water main. I will try again tomorrow.
I grew up in Los Angeles and cannot begin to imagine where this mythical lilac farm was actually located.
I know that they are usually considered to grow better in cooler climates, however, Lilacs seem to grow well at Filoli, which is not far from my current house. I’m looking forward to designing the garden at our Berkeley house this fall… and just might have to look into acquiring a small lilac tree…