Lilies of the valley, those sweet nodding prayer bells of springtime white, will always bring me back.
I remember the day with the haze of a 4-year-old’s vision, but I swore when it happened that I had opened the car door and stepped into heaven.
What I remember, is something like this: My daddy, a big soft soul who was not the sort for many without-Mommy field trips, for some reason took us little ones driving.
I don’t even recall where we were going, but when we got where he wanted us to get, he opened the car door, and out stepped my little patent-leather-clad foot as my eyes drank in what seemed an endless cloud of lilies of the valley. I dared not step for fear of crushing the perfumed heads. But, oh, I wanted to run. And roll. My daddy beamed. He knew magic when he saw it.
Above me towered lacy oaks, their buds beginning to bask in the springtime sun. Below me unfurled the white, sweet carpet. And then I don’t remember anything else.
But many times I’ve wondered: Where was that magic place? Could I ever get there again?
Every time I catch a glimpse of white tendrils pushing through the dredges of winter, I see one more time that indomitable, seeding beauty and know that it belongs wherever it darn well wants to be.
That’s what happens in the springtime, when the underpinnings of the growing world erupt, shake off their muddy blankets and proclaim their presence.
You get seduced by the fragility of these flowers. You thank them for filling your lungs again with hope.
There is beauty, even in unlikely places, cracks in the urban grit, swatches of long-lost heaven you can’t get back to, no matter how hard you strain at the heart.
