Lilacs

Above my 'desk' there hangs this quote:

"Early May came, and lilac time began. The plump white ones appeared first, then violet, and last, the deep purple double blossomed narrow ones, shaped like pine cones. Every Spring there came a warm, windy day when the colonization was complete and the whole town reeked sweetly. Everyone walking out into the morning inhaled, closed their eyes, stood still. For the two or three weeks they lasted, the lilacs were so plentiful and their rubbery scent so pervasive that it was as if some new currency had swamped the local aesthetic economy. They bobbed and rustled around us like heavenly emissaries, whispering rumors of a land where there was no such thing as scarcity. Children tore off branches--you couldn't wrest them free of the bush without peeling the bark in long strips--and carried great careless armloads home to their mothers, who never thought to scold them."

I was thinking of this earlier today, perhaps because the dog days of summer are upon us, those long hot days where you laze about indoors and watch the thermostat climb. I was thinking how, if I had known that I would end up living in a place where lilacs are scarce, that I would have enjoyed them more when I had them. Which then got me to thinking of all the things I wish I had enjoyed more...

Riding a bike. I haven't ridden one in years. Why would I? I can drive. But I remember being a child and that bike meant freedom. I would ride out on my bike and see the world. Well, my neighborhood as I wasn't allowed to cross busy thoroughfares...but it was my world, small and familiar, but mine all the same. Everyday would lead me further afield. And every evening would bring me back again.

Lightning Bugs. I remember sitting out on the front porch on those dog days of summer and waiting for them to come...and sure as the sun would set and the air would cool, here they would come...like some kind of unavoidable march. My brother and I would race them and chase them and catch them and let them go again. They're one of a privileged class of bugs--those beautiful enough to be tolerated crawling on my skin. (butterflies and ladybugs round out the club.) I loved that at a distance they appeared as a golden light, but once you got closer...held them in your hand you could clearly see that they were a sort of greenish light...like Gatsby's...bringing us back to what we imagine to be possible in the face of what is.

Snow days. It's inevitable. It's a hundred degrees outside...of course I long for snow. I pine for winter. And oh the days of cancelled school and sleeping in and long walks in the unintended silence that only snow can bring. Those puffy white flakes that never felt cold until they ceased to be and became instead a puddle of water...the white frosted cupcake nature of the world changing the too familiar landscape just enough to make it interesting again.

I have to wonder if all of this nostalgia, this almost-regret-but-not-quite isn't meant to be. That we never fully appreciate the wonder of the world until we've lost it in all our oh so fashionable cynicism...maybe that's what we're meant to learn from our time here. That some of the most important things are freely given...if we only remember to enjoy them.