Southeast Idaho is littered with lilacs. They pop out each spring, right around my Grandmother's birthday. They bloom with abandon along the roadsides, in overgrown vacant lots, next to tumbled down barns and abandoned creaky farm houses.
I imagine burlap wrapped bundles of lilac roots lovingly carried long distances, planted in hopes of surviving this inhospitable climate. What cheer they must have been to all the farm wives living amidst miles and miles of brown and grey--sagebrush, empty spud fields, log cabins and wind. To witness the first heart shaped emerald leaves and the splendor of bloom and fragrance that follows must have given many the strength for the days and work ahead.
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| A fresh armload--sink load--of deep purple lilac |
Each year I take time to celebrate lilacs and this link to the past by creating a very special bouquet in my Grandmother's Roseville pottery vase. She grew up in comparative luxury, but her mother raised her first child in a "soddie"--a home made of layers of sod, dirt floor, dirt walls, no windows, lots of spiders, mice and the occasional rattle snake!
Thanks Gram, for all the good stuff.
