Day 136: Something Beautiful—The Beckoning French Lilac

Something Beautiful is a self-imposed initiative to find a visual feast for each day of a year.

I smell them everywhere. — And they are intoxicating. Scent scensors in my brain tell me — it is spring; it is my wedding; it is Grandma. It is lilacs.

Growing up, the Scott Farm in LaFox had the most exotic dark purple lilac with a hypnotizing fragrance. In the inane delirium of my wedding morning, I cut huge bouquets from my Mother’s garden in Belmont — mixed colors like the ones below. And Grandma. Grandma shared that love and more than once we gifted a lilac soap or toilet water.

Each spring I wait for that magical transport to other people, times, and places that I can only reach through the astonishing fragrance of a lilac.