Lilacs... other than Hollyhocks, I believe they are my favorite flowers. I love their color, their shape, and especially their fragrance. I can almost smell it now, as I breathe. There were huge Lilac bushes on the side and behind my Grandmother's house on King Street, and every Spring they'd burst forth in glorious display of dark and light purples and white, too. When the house was sold, they were ripped out and not replaced. IMAGINE!!! I think that's criminal, but it wasn't my call. We also had a number of varieties of them at our old house in East Hampton, but here in SC, there's not a sign of a Lilac. I've yet to find one to plant here that will endure the weather we have. It is one thing I remember of our old home town and one that I miss most.
My husband speaks often of the Canadian geese. That is what he misses most. We used to sit on our back deck and watch flocks of them fly over, heading toward the west in the morning and in the evening, making their return trip to the east. We sit on our porch front porch here, and it's a real treat when a pair of the long-necked geese travel across the sky to somewhere far beyond our house. We love to hear the honking, and occasionally we do. from some pond out of our view in the wooded area south of us. Still, I remember how thrilled Mike was last November, when we were back home, to see huge flocks in their organized 'Vs', noisily making their way to their destination. Yes, more than anything, he misses those geese.
We live now in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. We have no salt air here, no beach grasses, no ocean beach for many miles. Even though it was years before we moved that we'd been to the ocean to swim (due to crowds and expensive parking permits), we did drive to look at it nearly every time we got in the car. There was a joke in my hometown that locals had to 'go look at the ocean to be sure nobody'd pulled the plug.' Nobody had, and I can rest assured that it will still be there whenever we go back to East Hampton. I have no concerns that a board of decision makers will choose to change the direction of the pounding waves or the structure of the sea. It comforts me to know that it will be changed only by Mother Nature herself. As I say this, I want to add that I'm also grateful for those who do make decisions to preserve the beauty and history of the place where I grew up. I applaud the efforts of all involved in maintaining and controlling the integrity of the area. The sea and wonderful. clean, sandy beaches is what draws huge crowds to the Town, and I can honestly say that I understand why. There is nothing like the beach in East Hampton. I wouldn't trade a tropical one for East Hampton's oceanside, or bayside. That being said, I'm very content to live here in the shadow of the mountains, and I find that I appreciate the viewing of the ocean even more now than I did when I lived there.
I cannot bring an ocean beach to us, but we can travel across the state to the coast, if we want to. I cannot bring the Canadian geese to our skies, but I can shop for some Lilacs that I've heard will live in this weather. I think I'll do just that!
