serendipity or chance

today, i dug out a book on georgia o’keefe to share with my son’s girlfriend. the book was stacked in a pile of art books i keep beside my favorite reading chair. when i picked up the book, these leaves came fluttering out. i, of course, had completely forgotten about them. their bright colors, in contrast to our very gray and hazy landscape right now, was startling. only two months ago, my whole landscape looked like these leaves. how quickly we adjust to each new season.

these leaves, spilling from the pages of the book, onto the floor, would be easy to see as a metaphor for the passing of time: days, months, seasons. if i wanted to, i could convince myself it was more than coincidence that these leaves fell out now, just as the last few days of 2023 fall away. was it serendipity, perhaps? i define serendipity as coincidence with a tad more significance than pure chance. 2023 was not a bad year for me personally, but it was a very bad year for our collective humanity. the heaviness of our communal failings this year does not put me in the mood for finding metaphors. and yet metaphors are one of the most powerful tools we humans have for creating a collective consciousness. metaphors can move the needle.

so these colorful maples, falling, on the last days of 2023, from the pages of a book by a great female artist, who chose to live her life outside conventional norms, was not an accident. it is telling me to look at the female leaders who came before me. they were all rebels. they all had to defy convention in order to create a more just and beautiful world. and it reminds me, i want a seat at their table.

pressed autumn maple leaves

nesting

remember that 100 year old (12 ton) oak tree that fell on my house last july? well, it damaged about half of the house including crushing the trusses in the roof. so for the past five months there has been nothing but a blue tarp between me and the minnesota weather. well, the insurance and the restoration companies finally agreed on how much damage was done and how much it would cost to repair it all. so yesterday, i finally got a roof!

what a crazy year. when the canadian wildfires were raging this summer, we minnesotans were for the first time threatened with air that was too toxic to breathe. i found myself at various points this year truly grateful, in the deepest way, for clean air, clean water, and even for a roof over my head!  clean air, clean water, and shelter! as a young adult growing up, i was naïve enough to not only take those three thing for granted, i didn’t even think about those things. ever. they just were, and always would be be.

time have changed. my kids, both young adults who have just fledged, don’t take clean air and clean water as a given. they know far more than i did at their age. and they carry the anxiety of knowing in their bones. i wish it didn’t have to be so.

each and every one is unique

still no snow here in minnesota with none in the forecast. i will have to make do with this compound umbel seedhead, which looks a lot like a snow flake to me.

wild parsnip seedhead

orchids and evergreens

my mom got a bouquet of orchids and evergreens as a holiday gift this winter. it’s a combination i have never seen before. but it works, right? i love the color combination, holiday(ish) enough but the wine red orchids instead of the cherry red berries makes it feel a little more elevated and not so on-the-nose christmasy.this is a color scheme i might very well borrow for next year.

hanging by a thread

no snow in minnesota yet. and open water on all the lakes. it is unprecedented. i try to be mostly up-beat here on STILL, as i assume we mostly come here as a refuge and a moment of stress-free quiet. and yet i can’t help but feel like our climate may be hanging by a thread.

goatsbeard seeds (salsify)