Now that lilacs are in bloom/ she has a bowl of lilacs in her room/ and twists one in her fingers as she talks. - T.S. Eliot (Portrait of a Lady)
‘Lilacs make me think of you’, a friend said to me. We’ve known each other since university, where we studied poetry together, which was when these lines from Eliot’s Portrait of a Lady caught in my head and stayed there.
I must always have lilacs.
Years ago, when I worked in a tiny village primary school, a sprawling old white lilac tree draped its branches over the wall into the playground. At the end of the day, making my way home after marking books and mixing paints, I would pluck a bloom from the overhanging branch. All the way back, my car would be filled with the scent of lilac. As I drove I counted wildflowers in the hedges and ditches, and when I got in, I placed the lilac flower in a jar on my mantelpiece.
For a while, we had a lilac tree in our garden. I carried bunches of blossom into the house, filling vases, and plucking petals to make lilac sugar. Overshadowed by the hedge, the tree died, and I was heartbroken. I planted a tiny lilac sapling in the front garden, where the sun could warm it.
In late spring, I notice lilacs everywhere I go — spilling over fences on the school run, growing wild on the wasteland by the railway, blooming in the corner of a garden, on a road that leads to the sea. One evening, my husband arrived home with an armful of lilac flowers.
‘What’s that poem you always quote about lilacs?’ he said.
Thank you for reading.
Laura x
Brilliant to see you on Substack, Laura. Can't wait to see what you do here! I notice lilacs everywhere I go too, and I could almost smell them reading your post, beautiful. Xxx
Just perfect !