May 23, 2023

Good morning!

It’s Tuesday. Every year in May, Mother Nature picks up her magic phone, texts all the lilacs on the same day, and tells them to open. She never informs us when she’s going to do this. I’m not sure she even gives the lilacs much forewarning. I just know that yesterday was the big day. I awoke to the excited buzz of lilacs receiving their divine orders and dutifully doing as told.

As soon as this occurs, we have our own ritual, the Opening of All Doors and Windows to Maximize Aroma Overwhelm. We do this even if it’s cold out, as it was yesterday. I will wrap up in a wool blanket if necessary. The lilac aroma must be maximized.

That ritual, in turn, triggers the household commandment: Thou must sniff the air every three minutes and comment on how good the lilacs smell.

That will be then sum of our life for the next two or so weeks. So if you catch me here sniffing the air and waxing poetic about the lilacs again, that’s why.

But for now, I am opening the magic window between your screen and mine so that you, too, can lean in and take a good long sniff.

“Life must be aromatic.
There must be scent, somehow there must be some.”

—Gwendolyn Brooks

Onwards,

Clara