Never a Better Bouquet

Growing up, vases and bouquets of flowers were just not the norm.  I grew to think of them as only something for a very special occasion, or for getting my dad out of trouble. While I enjoyed and appreciated the smell, color, and the feelings that came with them, getting a bouquet was never something I pined for. I even made the error of telling my husband a few months into our marriage when he would bring the impromptu bunch home that he really didn't need to do that.  I probably didn't receive another bunch for a decade from him. The bouquets of flowers though I most remember  growing up was lilacs. Our little hobby farm had two of the four sides lined with massive and overgrown lilac bushes.  These were so dense, as small children we could create little hideaways in the centers of the bushes. We each had our own little "houses", and would bring out small blankets or towels to create places to sit. Big roots were chairs. We often would picnic outside of the bushes, laying a blanket out. My first bouquet in memory, though there could have been years of these before, was when Billy, the neighbor boy, picked a bunch of lilacs, with stems and placed them in a mayonnaise jar, filled with water.

I don't remember the menu, but more than likely we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, graham crackers, Kool Aid served in bathroom size Dixie cups, and maybe a cut up apple. If it was a banner grocery week, we might have even had potato chips and  chocolate or vanilla sandwich cookies, with a creme in the middle-rarely real Oreo's. We were elegant 5, 6, and 7 year old diners, pretending to drink tea out of the Dixie cups with one pinky in the air like we had seen on the television. I do remember this time, or maybe it was another time, bringing those lilacs into the house and there they stayed until they had withered, the scent growing fainter after time. 

Lilacs are still my favorite flower over all, though I've a fondness for lilly's as well. We tried growing several times, but just didn't seem to get them to grow. On one of my walking routes, a whole mess of lilacs line the path. I am tempted each spring to bring along a scissors and grab a little bouquet, but of course that would be wrong.  Instead, I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and picture those carefree days of late spring from decades gone by.

This post is part of Out of the Writer's Closet Rise and Write project. Visit HERE for more information.and to read other blog posts.  This is prompt 2, Write about the first bouquet of flowers you received (or gave to someone).