Every year I have had the blessing of seeing lilacs somehow
since then. One year I happened to be in Central Park on the day of days
for the lilacs at their peak, and walked through the “lilac walk” drinking in
the smell and burying my face in different colors and sizes of blooms. Another
year a man I loved brought me an enormous bunch of them from the country after
our first date. Don’t ever underestimate the power of flowers. I had fallen in
love with him already, but the future of that relationship was difficult in
many ways, and that bunch of lilacs is still one of my fondest memories in
spite of some other not so beautiful things that have been long forgiven. This
year, one of the men who comes to one of the community meals programs where I
bring my nutrition and wellness table told me that there were lilacs blooming
in the park nearby. I took some extra time before going home, even
though I was tired after a very long day in a very long week, just to make sure I got my fix of
lilac heaven. They are usually big enough not to miss, but even if they are
hidden, their scent gives them away. I’ve been walking around and smelling them
for the past few days, wishing this tiny window of time could go on forever.
When I was graduating from college, I added two quotes to my
yearbook page, one from Alexander Solzhenitsyn about apple blossoms and another
from Marcel Proust on lilacs. This is the time of year for both of them, and those quotes have been in my thoughts as I enjoy the springtime beauty. I went
to a very artsy school, and I was a bit pretentious I’m sure, but I was an
English major, or rather I had a "Concentration in English Literature" as we said there, and
those two quotes are still some of my favorites. “When, on a summer evening,
the resounding sky growls like a tawny lion, and everyone is complaining of the
storm, it is along the “Meseglise Way” that my fancy strays alone in ecstasy,
inhaling through the noise of falling rain, the odour of invisible and
persistent lilac trees.” That one is
from Proust’s "Swann’s Way," a book entirely about memory. The lilacs he is
describing are remembered in another perhaps less happy time, and even in memory their scent persists and brings him joy.
Solzhenitsyn wrote about apple blossoms in a book called
Prose Poems. In this passage he was writing about living in a place with little
freedom or space to move, but in the area behind where he was living there was
an apple tree. He ends his reflection with these words, “As long as there is
fresh air to breathe under an apple tree after a shower, we may survive a
little longer.” He had spent a lifetime under oppression and had been sent to
Siberian work camps because of his writing, and still the scent of apple
blossoms in springtime could give him a feeling of hope.
I remember a young man, a freshman when I was a senior at
college, taking a walk with me around the campus one late night into early
morning. It was toward the end of my time there, so our romance was short
lived, but I will never forget talking with him under an apple tree just after
it had rained. He broke off a small branch and offered it to me, a gesture of
such sweetness that I will never forget it. Don’t ever underestimate the power
of flowers. They speak volumes when we don’t have the words ourselves. In some way they are like a breath of life itself.
When I looked back in my yearbook to look up the quotes
again, I was amazed to look at my photo and see that I look the same. It’s
amazing what God can do. I have more makeup on in that picture – it was my
headshot for my new life in New York – and I wear my hair differently now
because of the work that I do – I keep it up almost all the time in a ponytail
and I used to wear it down – but otherwise, the many years that have passed
have been kind to me as they say. That photo was taken by a woman in Boston,
and I learned when I moved to New York that there was one big difference in the
headshots between the two cities – in Boston you smiled and in New York you
didn’t. I learned quickly enough how to look very serious here – the stress and
strife and the unkindness of life taught me that very easily. There were times
of laughter and times of fun – people and places I loved and felt happiness in.
But after a time of peace the stress would come in full force, tearing the
smiles and laughter out of me. Fear of homelessness, poverty, betrayals,
heartbreak – they wrote their lines on my face in wordless expressions of
grief. To see myself now you’d think that I lived a charmed life – a woman said
that to me once and I had to laugh. But that is what God can do. When I learned
I had a place to bring my troubles to, I was free at last of the burden of
carrying them by myself.
There is an Irving Berlin song that I learned growing up.
My mother and I used to watch old movies together and she’d teach me the songs she had known
and loved when she was growing up. “What’ll I do, when you are far away and I am blue, what’ll I do?
What’ll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to? When I’m alone with
just the dreams of you that won't come true what’ll I do?” I have had some wonderful
romances in my life, some dreams that have come true for a time, but there are times
in every life when life gets in the way of the dream and we wonder how will I
go on? What will I do? Learning that God is never busy, that He always answers
my calls, that He always understands me and that He loves to talk to me has
been one of the biggest blessings of my life. Proverbs 12:25 says, “Anxiety in
the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.” Another
translation reads,” The weight of worry drags us down, but a good word lightens
our day.” The word of God is like that for me - talking to Him, reading the Bible
– no matter what it is that is hanging over me, His word cuts through it to
bring the scent of hope like apple blossoms after the rain.
There’s a beautiful song by Josh Groban that the Lord gave to me one
day last summer – He was giving me verse after verse after verse and song after
song after song to keep me going, to keep me trusting in a promise He had made
to me, a dream deferred that life was getting in the way of. “When I am down,
and oh, my soul so weary. When trouble comes and my heart burdened be. Then I
am still and wait here in the silence, until you come and sit awhile with me.
You raise me up so I can stand on mountains, you raise me up to walk on stormy
seas. I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I
can be.” I heard the song for the first time while I was working at an outdoor health
fair at a church in the Bronx, and when I went home I looked it up online and listened to
it over and over again so that I could learn the words by heart. “There is no
life, no life without its hunger, each restless heart beats so imperfectly, but
when you come and I am filled with wonder, sometimes I think I see eternity.
You raise me up so I can stand on mountains, you raise me up to walk on stormy
seas, I am strong when I am on your shoulders, you raise me up to more than I
can be.”As I walk around smelling the lilacs and the apple blossoms, as spring kicks into high gear and the air is filled with their scent, I think about past days that are gone but not forgotten, and look forward to new days ahead. Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us, "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." Psalm 103 puts it this way, "Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." Looking back on those days of years gone by at a photograph of a face that has not changed though so much has changed around me, I know in a deep part of me the faithfulness of a God who forgives, who heals, who redeems, and who loves, and I know that even if I am in a moment of weakness and weariness, that God is faithful and that He will satisfy and fulfill and renew and restore as I move from the night into the dawn in His care.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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