the years were hard on this oak limb, and it survived in the shape of a heart, with a little hole in the middle that the world couldn’t see.

oak limb cross section

saint paul, minnesota

yes i see the satisfyingly mounded texture of the curled and gripping oak leaves. but i can’t help also seeing the negative spaces between the leaves, and for some reason, i mostly see mouths. they are grinning, gaping, smiling, moaning, smirking, singing, and gasping in horror. they have very crooked teeth, when they have teeth at all.

curled november oak leaves

grass lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

i was faced late this afternoon with a choice between a simple photo of a single branch of interestingly textured oak leaves, or an ambitious photo involving patterns and shapes and several pints worth of dried sumac leaves crumbled and ground in a mortar and pestle. i had about 45 minutes to do one or the other. we have been particularly busy lately and sometimes when you have a lot on your plate it is actually easier to take on an ambitious project. for whatever reason, my husband said he liked the sumac leaf idea, i looked at the clock, and thought, “bring it on.”

crumbled leaf matter

saint paul, minnesota

i read a book recently about how our time gets shredded into confetti, and that we all actually have much more time than we think, but it’s divided up into tiny, sometimes useless increments. i have been feeling this way, lately. despite having decent time management skills, and despite having a list of things i would really like to do, i find myself dodging distractions and demands on my time almost daily: light social invitations, oil changes, software updates, driver’s license expiration dates, vet appointments, pop-up ads, mailing list reminders, and prescriptions at walgreen’s. sometimes i feel like this feather. i just want to stand on a beach for a while and preen.

beach feather

either grand marais, minnesota or sète, france

as i lamented yesterday on instagram, this bouquet was gathered under duress, from a drainage ditch, in fading light, at the end of a day full of “shoulds,” and sorely lacking in “wants.” it involved a lot of toyota dealership, and no puggle walking. a lot of dishwashing and driving, and very little contemplative gathering. a lot of below freezing and very little southern france. a lot of physics homework and very little talking to my hubby. it is testimony to the charmed stage of life i find myself in that a day spent driving my beloved son to and from school, running a few errands, cooking a nice taco dinner, contributing a photo to my blog, and sitting by a fire after dinner could be perceived as a sort of trial. i expect exactly zero sympathy.

november stems: milkweed, staghorn sumac, and two others unidentified

from the parking lot drainage ditch on hwy 61, white bear lake, minnesota