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Posts Tagged ‘musings’

oregano in the hallway and …

Posted in Branches, Inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2014| 3 Comments »

Some folks think I yearn for a big field to garden, but I don’t.  I enjoy my few clay pots and random mugs filled with dirt, tucked in all sorts of corners and moved about as my whim and the sun does strike.

It has been fun this year to grow flowers, herbs and the occasional vegetable.  The trailing green growth and splashes of color have been inspiring, as well as occasionally quite tasty.  Most of the herbs have died back or faded away completely with a few exceptions like the oregano.

I planted a few new seeds on Saturday.  Spicy cress, fenugreek and more nasturtium.  The fenugreek has already started to sprout.  Perhaps I’ll be able to harvest it for Christmas. On Sunday I picked up some paperwhite bulbs with a goal to plant them in January and perhaps soon after photograph white winter blooms against a backdrop of falling snow. Until then, I have these herbs and, oh yes, that violet.

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I was mad …

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2014| 6 Comments »

… mad at some things that had happened around me.  Things that were kind of like bits of straw raining down upon a camel’s back.  What I felt was certainly legit but I also felt myself getting angrier than I needed to be.  I wanted to redirect that anger. A long walk, my method of choice, was out of the option because of the cold.  Yet I was determined not to do what I remember my mom having penchant for doing which was to sit in a literal and figurative dark place.  I was not ready to talk about what was bothering me.  There were no words quite formed for me to write.  What do do, what to do.  I decided to follow the advice I sometimes give to others when they tell me that they are tired of talking or that they cannot write (“I don’t know how to write. You’re the writer!”).  What do I suggest?  Draw.  So, I sat down to draw.  Now I almost stopped myself.  Why? Because I can’t draw.  Yes, I’ve dabbled in this that and the other thing but really even with the help of a ruler, I can’t make a straight line!  Then I took a deep breath and decided not to worry about straight lines. Curves can be cool.

As for what to draw … now I’ve been having this ongoing conversation with one of my little postcard penpals.  He’s my four-year old nephew living down in Virginia.  I’ve been sending him pictures of birds and squirrels and such.  He’s tasked with drawing me a fish.  Or a school of fish.  Maybe a shark.  As I sat at my desk in the bright sunlight, I drew fish for him and for myself, bright colored, imperfect, smiling fish.  My anger did not disappear but it came into perspective.  I have not sent the fishy bookmarks to the little guy.  I want to give him time to draw his fish for me and for himself in whatever colors of the rainbow he decides.

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one window, many views

Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The tree I photograph most often through the rippled window is dead.  The greenery and blooms captured throughout the seasons are mostly from vines like forsythia, ivy and something holly-like.  With each storm, more of the tree falls to the ground, whole branches and bits of bark.

For safety’s sake, at some point soon, whoever owns that particular piece of ground will have to chop that tree down.  The woodpeckers will certainly miss their perch and the insects that they dine upon will miss their home.  The vines I suspect will continue to thrive.

Even cut off at the base, they always seem to come back, finding new objects to drape upon. And the moss is ever present.

 

Adjacent is the neighbor’s garden.  He did quite well his first season with a multi-tiered, lush affair of eggplant and kale, tomatoes and cauliflower.

I expect he grew potatoes, too, like me.  And I know for sure I saw the green beans climbing up their strings.

As December looms, all that’s left are the relics of dark greens and tomatoes that I guess the city rabbits and city squirrels couldn’t figure out how to get.

There is the chain link fence but that doesn’t prevent his cat from getting out so I’d think that wouldn’t prevent other animals from getting in.  If I do my local Open Studios next year, perhaps I will focus on prints of scenes through the rippled glass.

One window, many views.  We’ll see.  Ideas are easy. It is the follow-through that’s hard. FYI, these are untouched photos of views in this early morning’s light.

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marigold

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2014| 6 Comments »

during my travels

of all the herbs and plants left behind

the marigold alone did not survive

except

there is a single blossom

autumnal orange with patches of gold

broken off I suppose as its green stem dried

that blossom it still thrives

without water or soil yet warmed by the sun

at rest where I found it upon returning home

on the tabletop next to the kitchen window

we’ll see how long it lasts

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one day …

Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 2, 2014| 3 Comments »

One day, I will move from this house in Somerville with its many windows.  I will no longer be able to climb its spiral staircase to the top floor and from there to peer out the old window at the towering oak.  I will no longer be able to train my camera up through that tree’s branches into the sky.  But that day has not yet come. So on this bright September morn, I am grateful for this window, this oak and the blue of the sky beyond.  Have a good day, folks.

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white black gold

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2014| 1 Comment »

Today I saw three white butterflies tussling in the air.  It was an unexpected delight of a sight as I raced past an open window.  No camera did I have nor did I need.  It was better for me to just pause, and feel the breeze, as I watched such a beautiful dance.  Afterwards I sat with a piece of black paper and a white pencil and sketched them while mostly thinking of a young friend who is now 6 and about to turn 16 who recently asked, “what do you do with black paper?”  The butterflies were fine for me but not good enough to post.  But … I did recently take a walk with my camera and captured this little golden fellow resting on a green leaf.  So, after all those words, it is his image that I’ll share.  Enjoy, and may we all have a good week.

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if the Sun were to star in a Wagnerian opera …

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2014| 3 Comments »

… well, I do believe there would be a supporting cast of shadows. With that seed planted, I hope you enjoy the following photo essay now available at Creativity-Portal.com:  A Cast of Shadows.

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ephemeral beauty

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2014| 7 Comments »

I’m not sure if it was a dandelion.  The wispy head was the size of a softball.  I’d never seen one so large before.  There were, in fact, three growing on the side of the hill.  I saw them as I raced to the train station.  Running late, I couldn’t photograph them at the time.  A few hours later, heading home, I saw that there was only this one remaining. The others had blown away.

This one’s placement on the hill was too high, and the plants around it too thorny, for me to get too close.  I zoomed in as best I could but I could not brush away the grasses growing in front of it. Later, I considered deleting the image — it was not what I had expected — but something stayed my hand long enough to see the beauty of what I had captured, and which existed no more except in memory.

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random sunday thoughts: seeds and wishes

Posted in Inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2014| 6 Comments »

window14

I wish I had the money to wipe away all of the debts of my family and friends.  Because if their debts were gone, would that make them happy?  Would financial freedom allow them to treat themselves better, as well as improve their treatment of the people in their lives?  No fancy behavior required, just respect, if not outright love and compassion.

Would it enable them to give the people in their lives a hug, on occasion, or at least a pat on the hand, and even sometimes to perform such actions without even being asked? Would it enable them to talk to each other and communicate in ways that work for all involved and not just one side? Perhaps conversations could take place without someone always having to be wrong so that someone can be right.

window8But I don’t have such funds to give and even if I did, I’m not sure that it would make a difference because in the end, I can control no one’s behavior except my own.  Maybe I should wish for the money so that I can travel around the world, to where all these friends and family members live, those that are suffering and in some form of pain. Perhaps I could pass out those hugs or those pats on the hand, so that certain people know that they are loved and that their presence does make a difference to the people around them and always has, even if words of gratitude are not often shared.

Of late I have received so many calls and notes from friends and family, all suffering in some way, but mostly feeling alone though they are surrounded by others.  I hear only their words, and know that there is always more than one side to any story.  I can make no judgements about those others in their lives.  I just wish that all were happy and each knew how precious each day was to have such people in their lives.  I can listen to the words and I can read the notes but I cannot change behavior.  But there is something I can do.
Each spring into summer, I buy seeds of all kinds, in packages large and small.  I send them out into the world to family and friends, of all ages, to help people pause and maybe even share a precious moment with others as they plant the seeds in the soil.  I send them to the closest of friends and family, and I send them to family and friends I know not very well at all.  I send them to the people who cannot speak to each other in hopes they can plant a seed together even if they do so in silence.  It is a selfish act — to know that I did something, gave something, to another.  I do not know what the seeds do for the recipients or even if the seeds are planted.  I simply hope they are.  I hope they are.

*the photographs are the latest series of photographs taken through the rippled glass, of life blurried but still beautiful

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love

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 23, 2014| 3 Comments »

Of late, I’ve met a man from a war-torn country who now lives and works in the U.S.  He has described to me scenes of great brutality inflicted by man upon man for reasons like this person looked like someone from that country versus this country.  He often has a smile on his face.

I am noted for seeing even an empty glass as half-full, but this man’s ability to find the positive puts me to shame.  Why is he so happy?  Not because he has a job that pays exceptionally well. He doesn’t.  Not because he’s made many new friends in this country.  He hasn’t.  I think it is because, even as the soil ran red with blood around him, he remained open to the possibilities.  He saw the beauty amidst the horror, like the flowers blossoming near that same bloody field.

He remained hopeful.  Or, as he once told me, he has love in his heart and so long as you have love, what else do you need? Hmmm.

One day I did chance upon him not smiling. I asked the first question that came to mind. “Do you still have love in your heart?”  He did not react with surprise to my words.  His brow furrowed in deep thought.  After a moment, he nodded, and then he smiled broadly.  “Yes, Cynthia.  Yes I do!”

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