compoundly pinnate

something beyond my understanding appeals to me about pinnate leaves. it has to be more than just symmetry. when i think that ferns grew alongside dinosaurs, i wonder if our species has just spent enough time looking at feathery fronds that  the pleasure of it got baked into our genes, like feeling a little bit attached to the daily episodes of the sun’s rising and falling, to start and end our days.

sumac leaves

saint paul, minnesota

homesick

in the midst of making our own minnesota home new again, steve made the mistake today of tuning in, via the internet, to france culture, the radio station he listens to in france as he drives the kids to and from school. suddenly he was mentally driving past rolling hills of vines, listening to a public radio station in the midst of a discussion about the poet baudelaire, with an imagined evening ahead of him that might involve olives from the tree behind the house, or the wine of friends, or those friends themselves, or all three. and steve was suddenly very homesick for a place that is not technically his home, but where he lives quite often in spirit.

olive tree branches

be still my beating…

doesn’t happen often, but today i tried, and i couldn’t do any better than wiki: “pink hydrangeas have many different meanings, but generally mean, ‘you are the beat of my heart,’ as described by the celebrated asian florist tan jun yong, where he was quoted saying, ‘the light delicate blush of the petals reminds me of a beating heart, while the size could only match the heart of the sender!'”

hydrangea (possibly antique green)

shoreview, minnesota

construction

construction is taking raw materials with a certain amount of strength, and joining them together into shapes that are different from the shapes they would naturally grow into. wood framed houses. concrete sidewalks. steel skyscrapers. termite mounds. bird nests.

collection of bird nests

minnesota and southern france

art is what you take away

after five, going on six, years of a blog based on a minimalist vision, i still find myself struggling to realize that vision consistently. my first choice of images is still quite often the complicated composition, full of busy beauty, when the right subject is waiting there, patiently, for me to take all of the imperfections away, and leave it to be itself.

blade of grass

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota