happy valentine’s day, still blog style

no red hearts from STILL blog today. these red snow capped viburnum berries are the best i could do. we don’t do velentine’s day in our house. it is partly the rebel in me pushing back against the commercialism of it all. but also, it feels like a holiday for those who are still in the early blush of a new relationship and need an excuse, or perhaps permission, to make a show of their affections. this fall steve and i will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. we still make things work in deliberate ways, if less showy than champagne dinners on valentine’s day. i make him fish for dinner even though i prefer beef. i pour him a glass of wine at the end of the day after the fire is lit. he gets up before me, and sets out my tea mug with a cube of sugar perfectly centered on top of a tea bag. i still pat his butt. he pats mine. it’s love.

red viburnum berries in february

myth

a myth is a story that that is unprovable. it doesn’t mean it’s false. it just means it’s unprovable. prometheus brought fire to humankind. david slew goliath. paul bunyan chased his blue ox, babe, all across minnesota, and their footprints created our 10,000 lakes. those aren’t false stories. just unprovable. i took this photo of the feet of an eight toed bird with scales like a dinosaur and bat wings that lands on you just at those times when you are about to fall asleep but instead start violently awake. prove it’s not true.

tips of (unidentified) winter branches

snowball garden

i planted some snowballs last spring. after oversummering, they appear to be taking to this soil and these conditions. i just hope it doesn’t rain, or get too warm for them, poor fragile dears.

cone flowers in february

the true path

the hardest job i’ve ever had is still parenting. sometimes it is a matter of seeing, for instance, that the curl in this leaf was not a detour, but a temporary deflection before resuming a straight path. when the curl begins, it is impossible to know that it will straighten out again.

paperwhite leaf

curls

this photo is not about dried winter grasses. it is about the arcs of snow inside the arcs of dried winter grasses, given shape by inadvertent curls. happy sunday.

tall grass in winter