reliably unreliable forsythia and her bait-and-switch cousins

There are certain flowering trees and shrubs that foil me every spring. From a distance they are gorgeous. They beg to be photographed. Every year, I snip a branch, or two branches, or a bouquet of branches, and arrange them in front of my camera. And every year, they are a bust up close. Redbud, red maple, lilacs, apple blossoms, forsythia. In each case, the profusion is where the delight lies. The individual flowers are unremarkable or unphotogenic, or they are spaced so far apart on individual branches that they look downright spare. And so I take my one photo every year, and toss the branches back in the woods. Hey, forsythia. Thanks for nothing.

forsythia

stubborn spring

Some springs arrive exuberant and generous. Some springs arrive confused and cautious. This year, we are experiencing the latter. The seesawing of temperatures and the lack of rain have every living thing–humans included–in a state of watchful waiting. These tiny leaves feel symbolic of this spring–hopeful yet restrained. Is it time? Is is time now? How about now? Bursting from the seams but not yet ready to commit. I can relate.

make a promise to the planet

Happy Earth Day!  If you are a reader of STILL, you don’t need any reminders about the preciousness of this planet we call home. Having one day a year of bringing that reminder to the attention of the general public is…well…better than nothing. But for us, I know you are with me here, every day is Earth Day.  If you want to mark the day with a little something more than the usual, here are a few suggestions:

• Spend an hour picking up garbage in a local park or roadside
• Plant a native tree
• Spend an hour eradicating invasives like buckthorn or garlic mustard
• Join a nature conservancy in your area
• Learn to recognize one new native plant in your neighborhood
• Commit to memory one new bird song
• Figure out one new way to permanently eliminate plastics from your home

Let’s make Earth Day every day, my kindred spirits! I am grateful for every one of you. xo Mary Jo

cattail leaf

rose is a rose is a rose

Have you ever wondered what Gertrude Stein was getting at when she wrote “rose is a rose is a rose”?  I did a little digging into it, because I was curious. Did you know there is whole wiki page dedicated to just that one sentence? Here is what it says:

In Stein’s view, the sentence expresses the fact that simply using the name of a thing already invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it…Stein once remarked, “Now listen! I’m no fool. I know that in daily life we don’t go around saying ‘is a … is a … is a …’ Yes, I’m no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years.”… She said to an audience at Oxford University that the statement referred to the fact that when the Romantics used the word “rose”, it had a direct relationship to an actual rose. For later periods in literature this would no longer be true. The eras following Romanticism, notably the modern era, use the word rose to refer to the actual rose, yet they also imply, through the use of the word, the archetypical elements of the romantic era.

Clarified or more confused? I’m a little of both.

countdown

We had snow flurries today. I am the cook in the kitchen waiting for the pot to boil only to find out someone had turned down the heat. C’mon spring. All the critters are paired up and making babies, and those babies are going to need something to eat soon.  Tick tock, spring! Let’s get a move on!

dried yellow roses