Intoxicating May and WW2

Lilac Intoxication

(Small watercolor study)

Lilac Air

"A cloud of intoxication

slowing our steps

or mine at least

gathering in the nectar

breathing springtime in

The white and purple

different shades of scents

matching somehow the colors

richly, urgently calling me

to linger in the dew of fragrance

falling down on me

---Raymond A. Foss

What a welcome month May is for many of us!  The cold winter spell is broken and the earth is bursting out of it's wintry seams with all manner of growth and fragrance.  Newness of all things is in the air. Birds are chirping, singing out their arias with exuberance.  Baby calves are staggering on wobbly legs.  Plows open up fields of rich, dark earth.  School teachers and children alike count the days to the school year's end.  All this continues in spite of the world's nightly dismal news of nuclear threats and nations in turmoil.  

(Small watercolor study)

My first memory of lilacs comes from a walk with my grandmother who happened to be visiting from far away.  She encouraged my five year old self to stop and inhale the rich fragrance of some lilac bushes along the sidewalk we were walking.  That moment has lasted all through the years in my childhood memories.  She had personally experienced the horrors of war in other parts of the world.  She had suffered loss of her husband and young baby sons.  Her ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat in WW2 and she endured 3 1/2 weeks lost at sea on a small, crowded life raft for 3 1/2 weeks on the Atlantic ocean.  But through it all she kept a strong faith in her God.  She didn't grow bitter and lose life's joy.  I look on her life as fragrant...like the lilacs we walked by that one May evening in a small town in western South Dakota.  My grandmother's example has encouraged me to appreciate the fragrance in living in spite of adversity and sorrow...to trust in the all-wise and loving God who someday will right all that is wrong with our world.

Live bravely and beautifully!