This community post was written by Brian Hammer

Sights, sounds, tastes and fragrances capture our imagination, and connect us emotionally to people, places and times that bring meaning to our lives. The sight and fragrance of lilacs hold a special place in that emotional landscape.

It’s been a glorious spring for lilacs. Well, it’s actually been a very short spring after an excruciatingly long winter, but we are fortunate to live in a city with a relative abundance of parks and green space, and yards lined with light pink, deep pink, white, lavender and deep purple lilacs. We have lilac hedges, mounds, and older, woody lilacs that have toughed out another winter season. Few plants have the power to capture the imagination the way lilacs can, enveloping you suddenly in a singular fragrance that is at once overpowering and sly. Lilacs command your attention upon entering their realm, even when blithely not paying lilacs due deference at full bloom.

Lilacs bring joy to our city at a time when we need to find joy. Lilacs are a reason to slow down, take a breath and breathe in only what a lilac can bring to our lives. George Floyd’s murder two years ago was a denial of the human right to breathe. Lilacs are a visceral reminder of how precious a single breath is.

Lilacs have the potential to bring us closer together as humans in our city, and with people and places far beyond these 58 square miles of land and water. The lilac (丁香花) is the official city flower of Harbin (哈尔滨), Minneapolis’ sister city in China since 1992. Famously cold-climate Harbin is a city where I was fortunate to work toward furthering people-to-people connections between China and the US at another challenging time in our respective histories. In Harbin, lilacs are a harbinger of spring, a sign of renewal and joy after a long winter, and a reason to have a picnic in a park along the Songhua River that runs through the city. The lilacs lining King’s Highway are a reason to pause and never forget the kind, gracious, fun-loving people of Harbin who get lost in the one-dimensional rhetoric framing US-China relations today.

Lilacs in our city, in every neighborhood, may have been here for a year or for generations, but they were planted by someone and are nurtured by someone. It is no different in Harbin. We must never forget we are connected as we pause to breathe in that joy and remember the humanity that links our memories of the lilac back to our communities, and to each other, and to the humble intentionality that makes joyful change feel not just possible but real.