Lilacs...Ah, the Memories!

It's the fragrance that we remember.  The unforgettable scent of lilacs, carried on a warm breeze, evokes memories of happy childhoods, and youthful romance.  Many people recall falling asleep, with the fragrance of lilacs wafting in through an open bedroom window.

You can't say, or even think the word, 'lilac' without mentally inhaling the sweet, fresh fragrance. Instantly recognizable, it is a difficult scent to describe:  sweet, heavy, fresh.  Part of the difficulty has to do with our brains. Olfactory processing takes place in the right side of the brain, while language is processed on the left side.  It is also a unique fragrance.  Peonies smell like roses. Lilacs smell like... lilacs. 

Although the fragrance is intoxicating, lilacs are not sexy.  They're sensual, romantic, and comforting. The memories they invoke are those of home, happiness, and the heart (after all, they have heart-shaped leaves).  Lilacs are a flower of whistful nostalgia, and bright eyed optimism.  They're sometimes referred to as, heavenly. 

Lilacs are an old-fashioned flower, loved by hipsters and great grandmothers.  Even in today's world of iphones and tablets, lilacs will grace a teacher's desk on the last few days of school.  A single stem in a simple vase, perched on a kitchen windowsill is charming.  An armful of lilac blooms, whether displayed in a vintage wicker bicycle basket, or an antique silver urn, has an air of gentility. 

Lilacs are a branch of the olive family.  While olives and olive oil will be found on many restaurant tables, lilacs are rarely found on a dining table.  Their fragrance fills a room, and will sometimes overpower, or contradict the food being served. Lilacs are ideally placed at the doorway, to greet arriving guests.

A thousand years ago, one of the biology teachers in my highschool, had an annual class project, which like it or not, involved the entire school.  As an end-of-year project, Mr. M. would place the lab tables side by side in a huge rectangle around the room.  He would cover the surface of each table with thick sheets of newspaper, and paper towels, and lay more newspaper on the entire floor.  He would then proceed to circle the room with the entire stomach of a cow!  All four compartments!

After only one day in a hot classroom, dead meat stinks!  The project would usually begin on a Monday.  The putrid stench emerging from the biology lab, creeping down the hall, and climbing the staircase, to fill the entire wing of the school within days.  Opening all the windows made little difference.  Mr. M's solution?  He would spray the classroom, and hallways with thick clouds of a popular, but cheap lilac scented room freshener.  It only made things worse!

It says much about the power of the pure, fresh scent of real lilacs, that even that nauseating memory is almost forgotten, when I think of lilacs.      

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.