stored energy

occasionally i get the feeling that i have expended too much creative energy and not added to my reserves. i say that i’m tapped out, or that my well is try, and it’s time to fill it again. but that might be too shallow an image. last year when we were in france it was as if i was undergoing a huge seasonal rebirth. my creative energy felt completely replenished and almost endless. i wonder if the narcissus bulb isn’t a better way to think of this. a long effortful growing season, and an equally long regenerative retreat. our household tends to live in seasons already. i might add my creative growing season, and my season of retreat back into my bulb, to our family calendar.

paperwhite bulb

time to bone up

i just spent an hour trying to identify this tree. it stands somewhere on the stanford university campus and my daughter sent the image to me. it looks like an ash, and maybe like a mountain ash, but those last two leaves on the end of each frond are opposite, and it has red berries which don’t seem to work for an ash tree like we know here in the twin cities, yet it’s clearly not a mountain ash. i have spent so many years getting to know the species east of the mississippi river. now i have a reason to visit the west coast for a few years, and learn about its flora. i guess that means it’s time to bone up on the western north american species of plants and trees. but yikes it feels like a lot of work.

(unidentified) lamp lit tree on stanford campus,palo alto, california

blue spruce in blue light

we have a set of six clerestory windows high above the single space that serves as our living room, dining room, and kitchen. the windows face south, and the light that shines through them moves in two perpendicular directions on two separate schedules. through the course of each day, the light travels eastward across our counters or our floors, as the sun makes its way toward the western horizon. and over the course of each year, between the summer solstice and the winter solstice, the light advances a little bit farther into the room each day, as the sun’s arc grows shallower in the southern sky. just a couple of days ago, i noticed the sun in my eyes as i sat at my computer, in the same location, and at the same time, as i have sat there for weeks. it was a little seasonal reminder that had been almost six months in the making.

blue spruce branch in winter sun

not really jonathan adler

when i first put these goldenrod galls in line with each other, i thought, hey, they look kind of like a jonathan adler sculptural room divider, with the bulbous shapes fitting into each other’s hollows. how cool! and then i thought, hmm. jonathan adler. glam. bright. playful. palm springs. and i thought, ok, no. in fact, these goldenrod galls do not remind me of jonathan adler.

goldenrod stems with galls

how i got here.

outdoorsy tomboy to soccer player to engineering major to astronautical engineer to wife to mom of one to section chief to mom of two to homemaker to nature lover to dogwalker to photographer to blogger to artist to product designer to . . . outdoorsy-tomboy-blogger-artist-dogwalker-nature-lover-wife-mom-of-two. this is why i have trouble with some self-help books. they don’t encourage you to get lost enough before you find yourself.

ribbon of locust leaves