Lilacs

“When I left the apartment for work, I noticed tiny green leaves sprouting on the lilac bush across the street. I feel like I measure the rhythms of my life by that bush. Leaves, buds, blossoms, bare branches, and then it starts all over again. So much has happened since I watched the leaves sprout last year. I wonder where my life will be when the lilacs are in bloom this year?”

Kate & Frida, by Kim Fay. Page 221.

My neighborhood is full of lilacs. There are two bushes in our backyard, right along the fence. I don’t remember them blooming at all last year, which isn’t surprising. Looking back at my May 2024 calendar, I see that my spouse traveled for work, I participated in three art shows, there was teacher appreciation week (and it was our week to do class laundry and snack), I traveled to Indianapolis to see an EDS specialist, was in the midst of a novel writing workshop, had an infestation of ants, was still attempting to do Pilates (sometimes twice a week??), my kids had an end of year performance and their school held a fundraising auction. And right in the middle of it all, our dog suddenly got very sick, and then died.

It's no wonder, really, that my body fell apart.

I don’t remember the lilacs blooming last year, but I remember the pain surging through the back of my skull. I remember the tidal wave of depression and fear. My June and July 2024 calendars slowly switch from social engagements to doctors’ appointments to nothing. Those months are a fog of muscle relaxers, comfort iPad binge-watches in bed, and loud, unrelenting pain.

I don’t remember the lilacs blooming last spring, but somehow I remember them shriveling brown. Maybe I was primed, by then, to notice the dying of things. Maybe, forced for the first time in many years to be absolutely still, I had nothing left to do but notice. I was incredulous. Embarrassed. The lilacs looked leggy and weak. How had I let them get so neglected? How was it that I’d never noticed they needed care? I told my spouse that the bushes needed to be pruned. He agreed, and then returned to the business of working, and taking care of the house, and the children, and me, because I’d withered so completely I could no longer care for anything.

Needless to say, the lilacs weren’t pruned.

Slowly, slowly, the pain began to subside. By August I was (literally) back on my feet, but shaky. Stumbling through my life like a newborn giraffe. I was still laboring under the delusion that I’d be able to get back to the (again, literal) breakneck pace of life I’d been operating at before the flare. I assumed it would be a matter of time. Perseverance. Physical therapy. Maybe a surgery. Maybe a medication. Surely there was something out there that would coax my body into the hard muscled, dependable vehicle I wanted it to be.

Outside, the leaves were starting to yellow. There was a chill in the early morning air. The lilacs stooped from overgrowth and mid-day heat.

My mom, an enthusiastic gardener who’d been helping with our yard all summer, offered to trim them.

“You can take up to two-thirds,” I told her, because that’s what I’d read online. She hesitated.

“Are you sure?”

I shrugged. “That’s what the internet says.”

It was a day or two later that I remembered the internet also said the best time for pruning lilacs was in the spring, right after they finished blooming. By then it was too late. She’d cut back one of the bushes, two-thirds, just like I’d said, and there was nothing left but bare sticks of trunk. I was horrified. I’d failed the lilacs again.

When I explained about the pruning season to my mom, she was horrified, too. She was sure she’d killed the bush. She was ready to dig the whole thing out and plant something new. I thought she was probably right, but I still had hope.

“Let’s wait and see,” I said.

And sure enough, as this winter’s snow began to melt, and the temperature began to rise, leaves sprouted along the bare trunks of the pruned bush.

It even grew a single bloom.

It’s tempting, here, to lean into platitudes about resilience. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Cutting away the old makes room for new growth. But that’s overly simplistic and isn’t always the case. Some plants die if you don’t prune them correctly. It turns out lilacs just happen to be hardy as fuck. And it doesn’t mean this one will completely recover. It may never flower as fully as it used to.

I probably won’t, either.

I haven’t returned to the level of capacity I was at before last year’s lilacs bloomed. I probably never will. And honestly, I’m ok with that. I might only be offering a single bloom these days, but I’m still here. I’m still growing. Traumatic pruning or not, it’s normal to slow down as we get older. It’s normal for bodies—plant or animal—to weaken with age. It’s normal to not know how to care for something if no one has taught you, whether it’s your backyard bushes or your own body. We try our best, we make mistakes, we learn, and then we try again. We grow. Whether or not we flower in the same way, we keep on growing.