My body stiffens at a creaking sound, and I tilt my head toward the part of the porch that is screened but hidden, hugged by a line of small pines and rows of wild hydrangea—“volunteers” I dug up in the woods near the dunes when I used to hike the state park around the beach. They have grown to be nearly eight feet tall and will bloom with massive, lacey white blossoms as big as baseballs. I listen.
Must be a tree limb, I think. Or my body.
I chuckle to myself and take another sip of tea.
The porch now feels as if it’s been around as long as I have, largely because it’s decorated with all my mom’s and grandma’s favorite things.
A floor-to-ceiling fireplace, comprised of round, colorful stones that I hauled up from Lake Michigan after they washed in following powerful thunderstorms, towers in the corner with a mantel—still sporting a horse hitch—that was salvaged from an 1800s barn that was demolished just down the street to make room for a cookie-cutter mini-mansion.
A mini-mansion! In Highland Park? Can you imagine?
I turned my grandfather’s old glass minnow catcher into a light, and around the window I hung vintage curtains—featuring deer romping in the woods on a crisp autumn day—that my grandma made when my mom was just a girl. The canoe that my dad and I rowed onto Lake Michigan every weekend morning hangs from the tippy top of the vaulted ceiling, the red-and-green paint peeling. Two barn lights hang from its bench seats. Every tabletop and corner is filled with artwork and mementos collected by my family, and tiny watercolors of my favorite flowers hang from posts and cover every square inch of wall space.
My heart—no, my family’s heart!—beats in this porch.
Even the massive table on which I work was crafted by my grandfather, a woodworker who built it from a walnut tree that was struck by lightning in our backyard. Its legs are made from turned logs and tree stumps. It is sturdy and worn like me. Its wood has absorbed countless tears and only grown stronger, it seems. It is so heavy, I can no longer move it inside in the winter, or scooch it in a torrential downpour when the winds blow the rain in sideways through the uncovered screens. It remains rooted in the center of this porch.
I finish my tea and look around, the moonlight and lamp draping the porch in an ethereal light.
Even as a little girl, I loved heirlooms. I snuggled under my grandma’s quilts, I wore her aprons, even though they dragged on the floor, and I used her rolling pin to make the crusts for her blueberry pies. I kissed every antique Christmas ornament as I hung it on the sturdy blue-green limbs of the Fraser fir, and I listened to my mom’s music box as I brushed my hair.
But it was my family’s flowers that captured my heart. To hear the stories of how each flower was passed along—mother to daughter, friend to friend, garden to garden—and what they meant to each gardener was a tribute to patience, care, time and love.
But most of all, it was a tribute to hope. Hope that something beautiful would grow despite the harsh winter, the frozen earth and a world that was constantly at war.
Everything must hibernate in order to grow anew, my grandma said.
I lift my yellow lined tablet and review what is growing in my tiny greenhouse, which sits in the back corner of my yard, and what will need to be planted. I begin to write with a pencil, my penmanship like chicken scratches, barely legible even to me. In this technological age, I still do this all by hand. Even write in cursive, which I understand is disappearing from the world. I glance down at the cut-up stockings that hold my seeds.
The world would laugh at me if they saw how I still lived.
I’m Wilma Flintstone in a Judy Jetson world, I think.
But then I see my Blackberry and my Apple Powerbook sitting just beyond my tablet of paper, and I sigh.
Maybe I’m a little Judy Jetson, I consider, staring at the shiny devices that have begun to change the world. They are now my conduits to the outside world. I can call and have groceries, potting soil, light bulbs delivered without leaving the house. I can even email and have things delivered locally without speaking to another human. I’m beginning to like technology, in fact, I think with a laugh.
I begin to write when the smell of lilacs drifts onto the porch again. Their scent is so strong, so intoxicating, so magical, I cannot help myself. I set my readers down and push myself up with the help of the table and slowly make my way over to the steps leading to the yard. I pause briefly as I open the door. A small bell tinkles lightly. It’s the bell my grandma used to ring in order to call us to dinner when we were on the beach playing. Before I walk out, I stop: a shadow box filled with three mementos—a medal of honor, a dried dandelion that is nothing more than a wilted stem and a dried rose whose peach color has long faded—sits askew on a nail. I straighten it just so with my trembling hand and then make my way out, the bell tinkling. Slowly, one step at a time, my body at a forty-five-degree angle against the handrail, I follow the scent of the lilacs.
When I reach them, I stoop over and hold the blooms to my nose. I am transported in time, back to my grandmother’s house, which smelled of lilacs in May. I analyze the pretty purple bloom and the intricate flowers that comprise it. I’ve always loved lilacs in Michigan: they are reliable bloomers if cared for properly.
I have a series of shrubs, each with about ten canes. Neighbors used to come to me every May and say, “My lilac isn’t blooming, Iris. What do I do?”
I’d head to their yards and sneak a peek. Most times, they had pruned their lilacs incorrectly and at the wrong time. Lilacs bloom on old wood. The flower’s buds for next spring’s blooming are set on growth produced the prior year. Many inexperienced gardeners prune the dormant flowers, or do major cutting in early spring.
I sniff the blooms again and smile to myself at the irony, thinking of my lilacs, my porch and my body.
Beauty can bloom from old wood, I think.
I try to remind myself of that every day, as my body surprises me in new and unflattering ways. I am not pretty like a lilac, but I am hardy. The old wood is strong, the canes intact. I look down at my sweater.
And I do love purple, I realize.
I break off a bloom and hold it to my nose.
Creak!
This time the noise is close, very close. I stop cold and tilt my head.
Another creak. It is not my body nor a tree limb.
I tiptoe toward the fence where the new renters have just moved into my grandmother’s home. I have not met them. The only thing my overly ambitious Realtor emailed to me was that it was a young family. A woman engineer. A daughter named Lily. A husband home from the war.
All of that had sealed the deal for me, although I acted as if I didn’t care.
A husband who’d actually made it home from the war. A daughter who had both parents and needed a stable home. An educated working mother with a career.
As quietly as I can, I lean against my towering fence. Above me, I swear I can hear someone breathing. Not just breathing, but inhaling. I tiptoe back to the steps and up the porch, grabbing the bell to silence its tinkling. I set down the lilac and grab my readers as well as a pair of binoculars that I always keep on hand to look out at the water. I adjust both sets of glasses and refocus the lenses until the scene becomes clear from my elevated vantage point.