daisies were on my shopping list. our daughter was coming into town and i wanted some fresh flowers on our table and in her room. so, daisies are our go-to.
but the pink tulips caught my eye. long slender stems and the palest pink buds, i could feel my whole body slow down gazing at them.
every time i look at them it feels the same way.
the buds never opened. yet, the tulips are still proudly standing tall, ten days later. it is an image of potential. a visceral right-in-front-of-us portrayal of stately beauty. or maybe it’s an image of choice – of taking a different road. these tulips are stunning. and it is not in their blossoming open.
both of us artists, i can tell you there are many, many unopened buds. they stack in corners and in notebooks, in the recesses of our minds, on our laptops. they are pale pink and soft. they are deep-red and fiery. they wait for their moment.
and some buds don’t open. i read those buds may have faced a particularly cold winter, or had too much — or too little — exposure to heat and sunlight. i’d add that they may have had naysayers naysaying at them. they may be competing for sun with other buds, other flowers, other ideas.
or maybe they just like it that way. as buds. standing tall and quiet, emanating peace and tranquility.
every time i have looked at these pink tulips i have thought about their color. i have imagined it on a wall – the palest pink – with white crown moldings and trim. never having had a pink wall, i’ve wondered about how it might feel to be in such a room. i’ve wondered if it might feel the way it feels gazing at these buds.
i’m cheering our tulips on for another few days, maybe even another week. i want to keep them around. they are making me breathe differently. they are giving me pause. they are making me imagine.
and maybe that’s the point. it’s not always about the blossom.
and all the wishes in the whole wide world gather together. and they wait in the queen anne’s lace, sipping fine champagne and eating bonbons. they wait for their moments, individually and together. every-every queen anne’s lace pod. they wait for the tipping point.
and one day – in the middle of saunas and steambaths, luxurious manis and pedis, chamber orchestras playing taylor swift, candles and lavender pillows, crystal glassware topped off with port – the sun and the moon having risen and fallen many, many times – the wishes release into the world on new morning rays and seeds go every-everywhere.
and they drift and soar and look down from the jetstream at all the people.
the seagull looked at me furtively, side-eyed. he acted like i just wasn’t there, stepping along the harbor channel wall at his own pace, seemingly not too nervous about my presence.
writing, i’m holding my weathered copy of jonathan livingston seagull in my hand. jonathan thrived. he left the traditional flock of gulls so that he could fly, soaring higher than he had ever soared. he was an outlier but was kind and loving, generous with the skills he learned.
i’m thinking he was as much an artist as those of us who are artists.
ever since, well, forever, i have had a thing about seagulls. i have a seagull collection in a box in the basement. in the 70s, it was a popular tchotchke – a plaster or wood base that looked like a piling or rocks or shoreline with a thin metal piece atop which was a seagull. sold in every beachfront town, i was – back then – a willing buyer. i had seagulls everywhere in my room. they represented the beach for me – my winter/spring/summer/fall sanctuary. and then i read richard bach’s book. and i was hooked. it resonated with me back then, this story of breaking away, hopefulness, dreaming, accomplishing. i was 18 and i was a jonathan-livingston-seagull.
my soaring seagull days ended abruptly at 19.
but in these days now – as i walk the lake michigan beach or hear the gulls as they fly overhead our house – i am reminded. the caw of the gull is reassuring and, as i gaze up watching them swoop and soar, i feel vestiges of the surf – the sound and the ocean from long ago. tide out. tide in.
i walked along the channel and, in parallel lines, the gull started to step along the wall. and then he stopped, put both feet firmly on the cement.
and, still looking at me sideways, whispered, “don’t forget you know how to fly.”
if the price tag had not read $9.99, i would have purchased this tiny stake sign. but, at that very moment, despite the it-made-me-pick-it-up marketing, $9.99 seemed a tad bit high for a five inch tall sign. still, ridiculously cute.
our sunroom is filled with plants – everything from an exploding ponytail palm to stalwart tiny cactus twins “the dots”, to charlie, the heart-shaped leaf philodendron to snakeinthegrass sansevieria to kc, my difficult bonsai gardenia. kc is my problem plant-child. i mist kc, i use distilled water, i have fed it and keep the bottom tray filled with moisture, i turn it to face the sun. despite my attempts to have conversation, to really share life – for i talk to it every single day – kc is stubborn. next i will seek specific bonsai gardenia plant food – there are several options online. i’ll probably do some research to really determine the proper way to nurse this treasured plant back to good health. i’m not sure where i went wrong and it means so much to me that kc will be healthy and will grow – unfettered and with wild abandon. my relationship with this tiny plant has become a challenge.
you would think, had i purchased the tiny sign, that i would have placed it in one of the burgeoning clay planters. there’s a posse of plants responding to being nurtured. you would think that the e.s.p. of choice might be one that is flourishing.
but it’s not so. i, for sure, would have placed the stake into kc’s pot. for this plant – despite its complexity – is dear to me and is most definitely my emotional support plant. kc is a tiny slice of real life, a little unrooted, a little nutritionally off. when i got it, there were two buds on it. they never opened and, instead, fell to the dirt. my nurturing is not quite right yet. something is not quite right. feeling a little defeated, i keep trying to figure it out.
one of these days, i hope, i will walk into the sunroom and a tiny bud will have formed. and then – the day it begins to slowly blossom – i will know that i have done something right, something that touched it, something that let this little plant know its cherished place in my heart. its bloom will open and i will know that kc is ready and present – with me.
in the meanwhile, i will just keep on keeping on, trying to be steady and, just off to the sidelines, giving it unconditional love. i’m trying to be patient and let it do its own thing, while i quietly do everything in my heart to support it. i am rooting for this bonsai every day and i know that the bloom that will someday come will be inordinately beautiful, exquisite in every way.
ricko and nick could be friends. they are on the same page…that trite-but-true one of potentiality.
in “my big fat greek wedding” nick portokalos quotes dear abby, “don’t let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become.” out in the middle of the arctic tundra, ricko dewilde firmly states, “the best way to lose an opportunity is to believe it’s not there.”
john denver in “looking for space” lyrics writes,
“on the road of experience join in the living day if there’s an answer it’s just that it’s just that way
when you’re looking for space and to find out who you are when you’re looking to try and reach the stars it’s a sweet, sweet, sweet dream sometimes i’m almost there sometimes i fly like an eagle and sometimes i’m deep in despair…”
we are all out there – looking for space. no matter the ladder rung, no matter the age, no matter the skill level, no matter the lifeline of work and education and privilege and lack thereof, no matter the past, no matter what we believe, no matter the matter we are looking for space. the place to stand and breathe and be exactly who we are.
this week i flew like an eagle. this week i was deep in despair. i would guess – were we all to be candid – there were many with me up in that eagle-sky and many with me scrambling in muddy-despair. it’s both-and. life is a correlative conjunction.
and – in that infinitely latent and screaming way of possibility – the space we inhabit on this good earth is full of it.
in the age-old tale of things-are-often-not-as-they-appear, this beautiful almost-transparent white moth flits from lavender bloom to lavender bloom. in certain moments it is even hard to see, its translucent wings disappearing and then glinting in the sunlight. against the dark background of the deck, it is easier to see as it feeds on the nectar of these deep purple blossoms. it’s a cabbage white butterfly. and it is likely responsible for the tiny holes in the tomato plant leaves. it’s fortunate we do not have a cabbage patch as these little guys have the capacity to destroy it. such a beautiful little creature and so much potential for destruction of goodness.
i’m writing this (ahead) on a rainy sunday morning and it’s too easy on sundays for my mind (and heart) to jaunt over to the things-are-not-what-they-appear heading.
this translucent butterfly has specific markings (a black spot on the upward front side of its wings), a specific size just over an inch, markings that depict the gender, making it easier to identify and, if necessary, prevent or eradicate the damage it can do to a hard-earned crop. if it were to look like any other butterfly – or say, a beautiful monarch – it would be much more difficult for gardeners to recognize the peril, much more difficult for farmers to stand firm and work at keeping the crops safe that they have nourished so carefully, for so long, with so much dedication.
sitting on the deck watching this butterfly flit about, the sunlight catching its gentle wings here and there, i never suspected it might be at the root of the problem i am experiencing late in the season now with our cherry tomatoes. under a cloak of not-knowing and not-asking-enough-questions or googling enough, i didn’t know to point at this gentle creature. but the act of googling has given me information. i can look for larvae on the tomato leaves and examine the damage with a plan for it.
were it to be a full field of cabbage, like out in the county here, it would seem imperative to act upon this. a whole field of cabbage – a field of potential abundance – can be destroyed by the existence of something that people might never question. research says an infestation of the cabbage white butterfly caterpillar can destroy all cabbage growth, and prevention is said to be imperative to avoid the ruinous nature of such an aggressor. that way “you’ll have less work and damage later on.”
this butterfly has been here since the 1860s so its presence seems pretty solid and unshakable. i guess you have to pay attention to damage being wreaked around you in your tiny tomato garden, delve into it, gather information, ask questions and stop the quiet chaos from happening.
it’s easier when the wings are transparent, when the markings easily identifiable and when the community of gardeners and farmers are seeking the goodness of the cabbage field.
a long time ago i took a girl’s black t-shirt to the local embroidery shop and had them embroider the word “be” on it. it was a gift for my beloved daughter when she was a teenager.
be.
be yourself, in every situation, in every way. feel empowered to be strong and vibrant, with education and experiences to choose from, a blank canvas on which to paint your future.
back in the day, in the early 80’s, my husband and i, directors of a youth group, attended a conference, which i think i remember taking place in atlanta. the theme was “you are promise” and it was an upbeat, positive-memes-loaded reminder dedicated to youth. it never occurred to either of us that it would not be aimed at absolutely ALL youth – regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender identification, ethnic background, religion, or economic circumstance. “you are promise” was – in our viewpoint – for everyone.
today’s world – in what should be following forty years of continued enlightenment, continued inclusion, continued support of all, continued de-marginalization, continued love – struggles to get anywhere near self-actualizing as a place of promise for everyone to grow, to just be.
instead, the word “promise” gets all webbed into violent strains of discrimination, supremacy and extremism, and the word “be” is reconstituted into self-agendizing virtually everything.
this board was installed and painted on a shop window downtown two years ago now, after the riots in our town, a place reeling with grief and questions and fear. i can still smell the smoke in our open-windowed house, still hear the shots and the sirens, still remember the visceral images. most of the boards are down, but this has been there ever since.
upside-down with polka dots and handprints, it seems a gentle, though sobering, reminder – to be yourself, in every situation, in every way, its presence perhaps a suggested promise of acceptance.
just like a black t-shirt that’s in a bin in our basement.
breck rode home in the back. just shy of five years ago. it came potted in black plastic and we happily bought it a giant clay pot so that it could live on the deck with us, next to the old glider, tucked in by the house and shielded from too much wind. we watched its tiny leaves quake in the breezes and marveled at this piece of one of our absolute favorite places, breckenridge, colorado.
during the winter we wrapped the bottom in plastic to protect the pot and keep its roots a little warmer; plus we weren’t really sure where to plant our tiny aspen. our yard isn’t that big and there are big trees that could block the sun from breck, not to mention that we wondered about the possibility of breck’s potential height. twenty to eighty feet is a significant range and, even with a norm of fifty feet, planning might be necessary.
we doted on breck and talked to it every time we passed by. when our daughter house-sat for a summer, we asked her to talk to breck as well. we did not want this displaced tree to feel akilter, out of place, lonely.
a couple summers ago we planted breck in the ground. we placed it back in the corner of the yard, right in the center of ferns and hosta, under a bit of shadowy guidance of some big oaks and maples and next to the big pine tree. we could still see it from the deck and the patio and we hoped it would flourish in its new spot, for, surely, it had outgrown its pot.
breck did well in the summer until things grew up around it. the thing about aspens is that they need sunlight. its branches began to suffer; there wasn’t enough sun getting through. we needed to transplant this baby tree.
in the middle of dogga’s running circle there are some ornamental grasses. they live next to his roundabout sign (the european variety – clockwise). very carefully, in the fall, we moved our sapling aspen into this wide open spot, full-sunlight-possible. we have watched it as it adjusts.
aspens have a cloning nature and, though we cannot see this, breck is hopefully sending out other stems underground. one day in the far future when breck is no longer, there will be new growth and, thus, its clone can live thousands of years. as long as there is sun and rain and things aren’t covered in concrete, our backyard will always have the potential of being an aspen stand.
now that it is spring – well, sort of – we are waiting. there is new rich copper-brown growth and there are buds, leaves patiently timing their grand opening. we will watch carefully and research what breck might need to sustain. we want to give breck every chance to thrive.
we can’t wait to sit on the patio in adirondack chairs in warm sun watching the new leaves of our cherished little aspen quake in the breeze.
i have fond memories of brown paper bags. the beginning of the school year – backpacks laden with new textbooks and letters home to us parents, new spirals and pencils and pens and dry erase markers, a box of tissues for the class, rulers and glue sticks.
the textbooks coming home required covers and i’d save up grocery bags for the job. i don’t know if i personally ever had a bookcover that was anything BUT brown paper in my growing-up years, so it seemed natural to cover my children’s books in the same. it’s free, it’s sturdy, you can decorate it any way you want.
for some reason, i really liked making bookcovers out of brown paper bags. i can still easily see clearing the dining room table off, grabbing the scissors and the shipping tape. loved it. even in the time-sensitive early morning with a teenager by my side and a sudden “oh-you-have-to-cover-this-now” announcement, i really loved it.
maybe it was this bookcovering fondness that generalized to wrapping gifts with brown paper. (think: “brown paper packages tied up with string”.) the organic look (and earth-friendly environmental responsibility of brown bags) tied with jute or burlap ribbon has a certain jours de vie flair. i have eliminated all glitter from my ribbon choices; there are only so many eyerolls from the children i can handle.
at one point in my wholesale show days i used old boxes and grocery bags as display materials. i spray-painted the old boxes and cut semicircles out of the front to exhibit cds and tore pieces of grocery bags to use as labels and signage. there were no display materials more lightweight and with raw-edged organic fabrics wrapping the booth and tiny spotlights it was pretty magical. i couldn’t believe that i had carried bricks – literally bricks – for a couple years of shows. sometimes it takes a while for good ideas to catch up.
so the paper bags on the counter after grocery shopping are full of potential. they beckon to me to save them for a bit before recycling, to give a little more thought before placing them in the bin. they suggest themselves as containers for clothing meant to give away. they raise their hands as dropcloths for art projects or handyman challenges, ready to be part of a new earth interrupted painting. they remind me that, if i ever run out of pa pads, they could serve as scrap paper, ready to remind me of tasks to be done, ready to be grocery lists. full circle.
the bag o’ bags in the stairwell is ready at any time for any job.
i started a business when i was young. nothing cost more than about a dollar but i was a zealous salesperson. i pulled a red wagon around my neighborhood, going door to door – in the days when that was actually safe – and sold cactus. my sweet momma had prolific succulents and would pot tiny offshoots and volunteers into cups or chipped mugs or little clay pots, turning them over to me to sell. it’s amazing how many people would buy a 25 cent baby cactus from an eight year old at the door. i was thrilled counting my earnings at the end of the day and would impatiently wait for the next proliferation of cactus pups.
after a while and some market research, i decided to add candles to my stock. i purchased wax and three-dimensional plastic molds, tape and had a perfect little finnish knife to trim the wax after taking it out of the mold. i never lit any of those candles. they seemed more like decorations and less like candles-to-burn. funny to think about not-thinking-about-lighting-them and i wonder how many of the candles i happily sold on the streets of my growing-up were ever burned. though i’d love to revisit that project now, for fun and maybe to actually try the candle as a candle, my supplies are stuck somewhere – since 1979 – in the somewhat-finished attic room closet of a methodist church on long island, where i had helped with a youth group and taught them how to make candles.
i wonder now about what someone will think when they stumble upon all of that – my dad’s old hard plastic luggage case with molds and wax. i wonder if they will laugh thinking about the simplicity of it. after all, for my tiny business all i really did was melt the wax in a double boiler, choose a color dye, place the wick, tape and set up the molds, pour the wax into the molds and wait. once they were set, i trimmed along the seam line to create a seamless looking alligator or snail or mushroom or a variety of other marketable shapes of candles i can’t recall. i simply changed the form of wax.
i suppose it’s all like that. changing the form. the notes float and the composer grabs them out of the atmosphere, placing them together into a piece of music, changing the form of their ethereal bobbing-around-out-there. color bursts around us, nature offering us every iota of choice, and the painter gently retrieves them and places them together on the canvas, translating the iron oxide red of delicate arches into a vibrant sunrise or the flower of a still-life. the butterfly on the wing dances and the ballerina’s steps mimic the form, an expression of freedom and joy. words and expressions whirl around and turns of phrases hide inside dictionaries and the writer plucks and chooses, creating poetry and story from the raw.
my sweet momma and poppo discovered ikea in their 80s. they were intense fans. from time to time i would get big ups packages from them – ikea runs – with new wooden spoons or lanterns or cork trivets or tealights or whatever was their latest discovery there. and so i became a tealight fan. we burn them often. to light the table on our deck, to light our pop-up, inside all around the house, to honor someone with a flickering flame all day, safely burning on the stove. i guess that these are a lot easier to make than alligators or snails. and i know that they are obviously a lot easier to light and actually burn.
i still have a round yellow happy face candle i received years ago. i haven’t burned it. something about not messing with its form, i guess. why do we have candles we aren’t going to burn?
today, i think i might take out that round happy face candle. maybe i will put it on the stove, in a safe-to-burn-all-day spot. maybe it will infuse inspiring form-changing into the air around me. there’s much to purge from more recent times and much to welcome in next days. it’s worth a try.
reverse threading 