Lilacs

Monday Morning in the basement of the Education Building. Audrey has office space here reserved for doctoral students and I am here on her coat tail with not much to do today as she is on her computer organizing data.

I titled this lilacs becasue there are so many lilacs in bloom. I have been stopping to smell them as I make my way across campus and on the walks I take back and forth from where ever I am.

Lilacs along with lilly of the valley are two flowers, the smell of which can take me back to my childhood. In the backyard of the house on 14th street where I first lived, lilly of the valley grew along the basement wall of the house next door. The house next door was the boundry for the side and rear entrance of our house, so I could go out the door, down the steps and there in front of me was a row of lilly of the valley. Not til I was much older did I find out that this particular flower can be poisonous if eaten by a child. I used to sit on the sidewalk and play in the dirt where the flowers grew. I often picked the blooms to smell and sometimes take into my mother.

In the backy yard of the house was a workshed where my father and grandfather stored their tools. Between the shed and the yard of the house on the other side of our house grew two big, old lilac bushes, one purple and one white. The bushes were old enough and sturdy enough that I could use them to climb and get on the roof of the shed (not allowed but a great place to climb to neveertheless) there I could reach out and collect big bunches of the lilacs, thus the memories that take me back.