Hot And Cold, Spring Snow

Andromeda japonica in spring snow.

March 28, 2012

    After a week of record breaking, summer like temperatures, it was a surprise to wake up to snow cover this morning. My first thought was "Flowers! Flowers in snow!" I leaped out of bed and ran out to my gardens, still wearing my bathrobe. Quickly, my feet froze in my open toed, house slippers. My robe trailed in the snow and mud. I hopped around like a cat in water, trying to keep my feet from sinking into the snow as I pranced from one lovely vignette to another. I was enraptured in the glory of those tender blooms in crowns of snow.

      My husband hollered from the safety of a window, "What the hell are you doing out there?" Inarguably, I looked like a lunatic escaped from an asylum. Ignoring him, I kept photographing until the wind whipped up. My robe was blown in the air flinging mud with it and frigid air around my legs. My feet were soaked. I picked a trail of windblown hair from my mouth. When all of the snow blew off the flowers, I called it quits. Then, I heard water running.    

     Having grown up in houses with ancient, unstable plumbing, the sound of running water provokes P.T.S.D. symptoms for me. My first thought is always a strong "Oh No! What's wrong now?" Hurrying toward the sound, I was relieved to see that the source was just my husband, stark naked in his outdoor shower. Yes, we did  have snow; yes, the wind was howling; and yes, I still had the camera in my hands. And I did photograph him in all of  his glory, though his crown was suds, not snow. You may insert the smiley face here, or whatever other image you conjured. But, the details will remain between us. 

Siberian squill with snow on its crown

Pink Andromeda japonica in snow

pulmonaria, or Lung wort bud in snow

A blue variety of pulmonaria in the snow. Pulmonaria is also called Lung wort. In days of yore, it was used medicinally to cure respiratory ailments, like pneumonia. My grandmother would have said of David in his shower, and me in my robe in the out of doors, "You'll catch your death out there!" She need not worry. Once I'm done I'll just brew up some Lung wort tea. 

If you would like to see more images of spring time in Maine, click here.

This post is an Editor's Pick on Open Salon (click here for more on OS) It is the sixteenth of my works to be so chosen. Thank you, OS!

Get Your Mind Out Of The Gutter

This is an Impatien viewed close-up. That’s all, but I know what you were thinking. It is the rare person who does not immediately think of the secret parts of the human form. Our second thought is, “Oh! Wait a minute - that’s a flower!” So, why is it that our response is “get your mind out of the gutter,” as if our first thought is a shameful place to be? Psychotherapists have made fortunes declaring answers to that question. I’ve been working on a project composed of macro shots of flowers and their intimate parts, the parts that jump out at us and make us squirm. There’s nothing subtle about it, either. I choose the most provocative elements, because they stir the moment of unrest that I want to evoke in the viewer. I want to shove you off your mark, to disturb you. Why is that? The simple answer is that it gets attention; the deeper answer is that I want to stand out from the crowd. I confess that I have always yearned to be somebody, though my secret fear is that I'll conclude my life in banal mediocrity. My intense dread motivates me to learn to do a lot of things, too. I belong to a photography focus group where progress on individual projects is reviewed and discussed. It has irked the hell out of me when presenting my project, that the frequent response is ‘Oh ya, like what’s her name………O’Keeffe, ya, Georgia O’Keeffe.” NO! Not her, me! Georgia O’Keeffe was wrongly accused. Art historians claim she did not intend her paintings of Calla lily pistils and labia like Hibiscus to be construed as pornographic. It was her husband, Alfred Stieglitz (ironically, a photographer) who promoted her work with that language. In fact, those works are not representative of her work overall, but simply those that are most popularly recognized. And why is that? Because, they are the works that jolted the masses, not her more subtle, complex abstractions. They are the works which scream to the thing that we all have in common, our bodies and its urges. So, that’s where I decided to start - no disguises, no fans, no feathers, no bubbles, just unabashed posy porn. I chose an impatien as my opening piece because they are possibly the most ubiquitous bedding (see, there you go again) plant. They take shade and full sun. They live confined in containers or sprawling on the ground. They reseed prolifically, mutate readily, survive neglect and outright abuse and come in every possible color. They are simple, beautiful. They may not be the most complicated, but they are the best known, the Barry Manilow of the flower world. I’ll take that kind of recognition. Unlike Georgia O’Keeffe, I’m not beating around the bush.

Spring's a Comin'!

This is a short (under 7 minutes) video I put together. It's of my gardens in Mid Coast Maine in the months of June and July. I do all of the gardening. My husband is my slave labor. I made this video because right now, there is snow all over the ground. Where there isn't snow, there is treacherous ice. It's the time of year when the sun is feeling really warm and inviting, but dare yea who ventures out! It's still very cold. The wind is biting and takes the fun out of the sun's seeming invitation. At this time of year, I have metamorphosed totally into a house fly. I become one of those fat, lazy ones that buzzes idly around, crawling on the windows. They always seem like they should be easy to kill, but they're not. I can attest to that having tried to swat lots of them. Plus, I'm still here. Like the swollen, blue flies, I don't like to go outside. I like to move around inside the house, following the path of the sun. Only to fill the bird feeders do I scurry out, mindful of the deadly ice, always there to claim a hip, a wrist or some other vital part of me lest I skid on it. That has happened to me before, too. I've slipped and sent buckets of bird seed flying into the stratosphere to rain back down on me as I cursed. I've yet to break anything, but my life passes before my eyes anticipating that I will. Long after my heart stopped pounding and I'd caught my breath, I was still picking the seeds out of my hair and from inside my bra. It's a good thing that Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld didn't live here. I felt like he looked when he'd fly into a room, arms and legs everywhere before he came to an abrupt stop. Had he tried that maneuver on the ice in my driveway he would have broken into a million pieces. And his hair would have held onto bird seed for perpetuity. I have hair like his. I know.
Today, I ventured out across the yard to fill a feeder and throw some corn around. As I minced my way across what looks like old fashioned boiled frosting, I noticed tracks of deer mixed in with turkeys. The turkey tracks are so big they look like teradactyls were stomping around out there. The deer have come right to the side of the house to chew shrubs, in spite of the dogs (aforementioned useless bums). They have stood on their hind legs to tip a suspended bird feeder on end to get to the seed. That's how hungry they are. I suppose that there is lawn under the glistening sheen where now, only a Zamboni should dare to tread. I have to take that on some faith, faith that the grass will eventually green up, faith that my chewed magnolia will recover, faith that the deer won't starve to death. I have to have faith that I won't be killed outright, or at least suffer a million broken bones, while out doing a good thing for creatures other than myself. I have to have faith that under the snow, the crocuses are squeezing their way upward toward the sun. That's really why I made the video. Sometimes, my fears overshadow my faith and I need a reminder.