Memory and desire
The past two weeks have brought the first flush of this year’s spring — steady rains, then hours of sun; dandelions, flowering trees, and deep grass that needs mowing. Lilac blossoms scent the city; they bring to my senses the six or eight lilac bushes that marked the border between our drive and the neighbor’s yard when I was a kid. Thick as trees, these large, old plants bore enough fruit to overwhelm the whole neighborhood.
So I’ve clipped a sprig of lilac from some stranger's yard and put it in a glass of water on my desk. I’ve found and unfolded a birthday letter from my father, written in 1987 when I turned 21. “I remember the April morning when you were born,” he wrote. “I came out of Carle Hospital and the streets were wet from rain. It was a perfect day.” If I could just stay in my little perfumed, nostalgic world.
But before the sentiment can fully settle on my desk, I remember my father’s end-of-May death at 59. After a pulmonary embolism killed him, my mother and I walked out of Bro-Menn Hospital into idyllic, even mythic spring weather and sunlight. We wandered around for a while. We couldn’t find the car in the parking garage.
I sit here and slice open the lilac blossoms with my thumbnail. Or I crush them like little glands between my fingers until they stink. I remember how the wide, tongue-shaped leaves of the plants will mildew and molder in summer heat. I think about how Whitman spread the fragrance of “Lilac blooming perennial” around his elegy to make Lincoln’s death more bearable.
Like a Central Illinois spring, memory proves to be unsteady, equally lush and harsh. “April is the cruelest month,” writes that old Midwestern poet T. S. Eliot, “breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land / mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.” Eliot preferred stasis and hibernation to resurrection. All the coursing water in the stems of plants, and all that coursing blood in the body, all that desire and hope lead to nothing that can last.
From the time I was 6 or 7, my job on spring and summer Saturdays was to pull up weeds and grass from our gravel driveway. I’d crawl on my hands and knees in the matted down rocks and pull the weeds by hand, or dig them out with a dulled kitchen knife. Fingertips would bleed and bruise a bit. Rocks would impress little maps on my bare knees. Without a shirt in late June, my back and neck turned red. By July, I was browned and immunized against sunburn.
In April and May, though, I liked this weird work. While the neighbors watched through the lilacs, I made determined faces and filled a sand pail with weeds. I would pour them into a pile on the porch to count at the end of the morning. I got paid two-cents a pull, and I rounded up. My father paid in cash, enough to offset my resentments and ripped up knees. Sometimes he would crawl around in the rocks with me and contribute his weeds to my pile. And when the lilacs died, the stones of the drive would be covered in purple for a time.
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Best Neighborhood Bar (& Grill) : Urbana - My ‘hood- the ‘Boom! http://www.boomerangbarandgrill.com Go on a Wing Wednesday or Fish Friday, or see a band play some night. Local blue-collar Urbana terroir galore. My only beer snobbish gripe is lack of a pale hopped ale, but you…
The one thing that’s bothered me for a while about the Friar is that, for most commonly purchased adult beverages, you can actually walk down the strip mall to Schnucks and get them cheaper. It makes no sense, but there it is. I suspect it’s because Schnucks…
Maybe I complained enough in person. One time I even explained to the (wholly uninterested) clerk how to navigate the Illinois Statutes web page, and Savoy’s Municipal Code database I wouldn’t know because I only go there when I want to pay 30% more for anything, which is never.
@Rob: You seem to have the weirdest experiences. I’m in Friar Tuck every other week (don’t tell my mom that I’m a lush). They never fail to ask for my birth date but never my age, they never card afterwards, and they often allow me to use…
This column affords me a long-awaited opportunity. I’ve wanted to write my own column called Fuck You Friar Tuck Liquors. but I always thought it’d be too pithy. Here, I can say Fuck You Friar Tuck Liquors and not feel bothered to stretch it out to 750…
Ha! Exactly. You, sir, are welcome at the bar in My House.
Why wait ‘til 3 pm?
I’m excited to go tonight- should be very fun!
Next, I want to know about growing up on Ennis Lane. Or the neighboring Surbana Estates. http://pathfindergroupil.com/index.php/surbanaestates
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Snell and the little Hitlers of the neighborhood association need to chill out. Legitimate businesses should have the freedom to exist without having to endure the slings and arrows of ignorant and misguided opposition.
represent, Matt.
Yeah, I’d agree that Transporter Room 3 is the worst house venue I’ve ever seen.
Food trucks are the start-up, small businesses of the future for those unable to afford real estate. No surprise, that merchants who pay rent, utilities, and maintenance on a property would despise the traveling competition. Or developers who build more empty retail spaces would want to close…
Not so much far-right Tea Party as a balanced, moderate viewpoint between letting businesses succeed and protecting society with reasonable regulations. In spite of what the city reps are saying, the interpretation of policy on this issue certainly has changed. Letting a business start up under one…
I think it’s neat that SP has turned rightward, now espousing a Tea Party-style frustration with government regulations & taxes.
This makes me so sad. (Happy to live in Urbana, though!) Crave Truck has been a GREAT addition to the food choices in C-U, and it’d be a travesty to chase them away. This town should be supporting small businesses. I’m glad to hear that they’ll still…
*slow. clap.* Still offering no threat of intelligence…. I know I said I thought you should just write this whole column yourself next year, Isaac, but now that you’ve gone and taken a “part deux” run at it, I’d like to modify my request: Best Music 2013,…
Actually, it’s kind of nice, the quiet. John Heoffleur’s engaging commentary/dialogue is sorely missed, however. In lieu of someone intelligent saying something, I’ve compiled a list of Honourable Mentions: BEST ROCK BAND: Take Care ::these gentlemen have four completely different sets at their disposal right now (which…
What? Echo! (Echo!) Where’s the dischord and dissent?
This weekend will mark the first appearance of Kayla Brown’s Fire Doll Candle booth at the Market. Check it: http://www.facebook.com/firedollcandles
And without bloodshed. Sounds like the Savoy trustees aren’t as narrow-minded as some of their whiny pants constituents. Do you think quack Snell is already planning an asinine counterattack or is he still laying low after those “threats” against his person?
hey, if hair ain’t gon’ be over your head, my jokes may as well be.
Okay, almost 24 hours later and I finally got Issac’s Summer joke. I’m an idiot.
Excellent. I am glad sometimes American dreams are encouraged, rather than stifled.
Swap the dog for a fire pit and it sounds like you’re writing about my back yard. Very nice.
funny, as your summer begins, another Summer ends.
@Dan - Wow. Unfortunately, I have to refrain from further comment due to a previous employment relationship. But with that brief context you might be able to imagine possible comments or responses I could have.
Oh, by the way, the “Champaign County YMCA” no longer exists. The official name is now the “Stephens Family YMCA” (the website has not been updated, but check out the latest program guide). And no, it’s not just the name of the building. It’s the name of the organization.
Very inspired Photochops as well….
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@Jason: You’re right about that. I get groceries at Schnucks (they carry what I buy, which I can’t say of any other single grocery store in town), and if they have a beer I’m in the market for it’s usually a quarter or two cheaper per 6-…