Stop and Smell

The Lilacs! Oh, the lilacs! The blossoming bushes’ perfume is filling the air these days. Hints of the sweet smell waft and trail on the wind. It is a beckoning scent, teasing and suggesting that I stop what I am doing and run outside to find the lovely flowers. And why not? I love this blossoming time of year (which is quickly fading into real summer) that showers petals and flowers along my way. I often stop to smell them: lilacs, apple blossoms, other flowers that have no scent, but I give them a sniff to make sure. It seems like such a sweet surprise that these beautiful, fleeting flowers also smell so delightful.

Last year at this time, Ray and I started our cross-country bike trip. When we left the lilacs were blooming and we followed them from Washington state well into Montana, where they were flowering weeks later. If there are places where lilacs don’t grow as a herald of summer, I’m sure they have something just as beautiful, but if I lived there I would miss them terribly.

Lately I have been rushing around, trying to cram as much into each day as possible, planning each hour long before it has begun. So I appreciate the opportunity to pause and the reminder to do this by the pervasive aroma of lilacs which are in bloom everywhere around here. Not only to pause, but to notice something that marks such a fleeting moment in time (from budding, to blossoms to brown and past), to be in the moment, a place that I find myself much too rarely. As I pause to absorb the color and the scent, I am reminded of all the beauty and wonder that is around me.

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