There is a Very Fine Tree

I love trees this time of year. As if there weren’t already an ancient part of my soul that worships them in the first place.

My grandmother had a magnificent one that dominated her front yard. It was an alpine wonder: a mountainous blue evergreen straight out of a fairy tale forest with ancient, droopy boughs and an air of wisdom and permanence. I once hazarded a hero’s quest through its prickly bowers with some of the kids from her block, and inside we found a hidden fort carpeted in old needles. That was the first time I realized magic sometimes hides right out in the open. All we have to do is know where to look.

There’s a tree near here—a rare old mimosa that changes drastically in every season and takes up most of a corner lot, but it’s so enormous and exotically shaped that it might as well be a lone tree on an African savanna. I don’t drive by it often, but when I do I always check to make sure it’s still there. Because life just wouldn’t be right without touches of the unexpected like that.

But the one I always think of this time of year was outstanding in more ways than one. It was a towering old sassafras that appeared suddenly after a curve. In fall it would go from being merely majestic to being majestic and red. When I rounded the corner, it would suddenly pop in all its startling cranberry-colored glory. When I slowed my car—as this tree invariably made me do—I could see those vibrant little mitten-leaves waving in the chilly air.

When they tore it down for the new highway, I mourned. That was several years ago, and I still mourn whenever I make that turn.

Do you have a tree you worship?

Mr. Darcy: There was one very fine tree [in Lambton] that I remember.

Mrs. Gardner: On the green! By the smithy!

Mr. Darcy: The very one.

~Pride and Prejudice, 1995 BBC version, adapted by Andrew Davies from the Jane Austen novel of the same name

Succinctly Yours #168: Make Like a Tree

It’s time again for Succinctly Yours over at Grandma’s Goulash, where the challenge is to use a photo as inspiration for micro fiction of 140 words or 140 characters. The bonus word was "hover." This week I went for quantity over quality and came up with four:

Poor Gary was rather green…and literal. When the mean kids told him to “make like a tree and leave,” he was very careful to hover and do exactly as they’d asked. 131

Gary’s mother really wasn’t one to hover…or exaggerate. When she told him he would sprout potatoes if he didn’t take a bath soon, she really meant it. 124

When finished shooting Lord of the Rings, Gary feared he was typecast as an Ent. Though he didn’t like to hover, he took a job in the studio parking lot. 125

When finished playing an Ent in Lord of the Rings, Gary took a gig so far off Broadway, he was technically hovering in Central Park. 124

The last word in ignorance is the person who says of an animal or plant, ‘What good is it?...If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part of it is good, whether we understand it or not….Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. ~Aldo Leopold, as quoted in Environmental Science/Eleventh Edition.

Haunted Memories

I used to live on the edge of a forest just outside of Savannah, Georgia. On Halloween, especially, I miss the eerie beauty of the place, where acorns falling from monster Live Oaks sounded like Sasquatch crashing through the woods.

I still cling to the Spanish moss, tillandsia usenioides. It drapes my sunroom—my own way of remembering the way it dripped from those sprawling southern trees like the cobwebs of an ancient and ghostly past.

We had what Southerners called “Black Widdahs,” beautiful spiders, shiny black and leggy and delicate. I watched one once. She folded herself over that lipstick-red-hourglass almost protectively.

But my favorite thrill was watching the migrating blackbirds descend every fall. There were so many thousands that they darkened the trees just like a scene from The Birds. The sound was deafening and the air itself felt electrified. It was eerie and exciting and awe inspiring all at once, like National Geographic-gone-Goth. But the real magic came when they suddenly rose as one to leave. Every single one suddenly fell silent, as if someone had flipped off the volume switch, and they lifted in a hushed, magnificent cloud so thick and black that it momentarily blocked out the sun.

Happy Halloween wherever you are!


Conversation between two trick-or-treaters (as I opened the door while they were walking away): 
Trick-or-Treater 1: Told you that’s not what ‘No Soliciting’ means.
Trick-or-Treater 2: Then what does it mean?
Trick-or-Treater 1: It means hanging around and stuff.
Me: It means I don’t want people trying to get me to buy stuff.
Trick-or-Treater 2: Oh, we don’t want you to buy stuff! We want to take stuff. Your candy.

Improper Poll: Gone with the Whim

Ahner's Greenhouse in its Former Glory

It’s been a summer of disappointments. The heat and lack of rain meant it was hard to go to festivals and outdoor concerts. Most of the Fourth of July fireworks were cancelled.

Then I found out two of my favorite summer products have been discontinued. The horror! Harry and David’s Strawberry Green tea is absolutely delightful iced. Why would they get rid of it? Especially when no one else I know of has a strawberry green tea?

And Clean Sweet Layer was my absolute favorite of all the Clean fragrances by D’lish and one of my favorite summer perfumes. Sure, I can still get it online, but someday those supplies too will dwindle. Besides, fragrances don’t have the shelf lives that companies pretend they do. Stale is stale.

But one of the worst is that I keep finding out more beloved places around town have closed. The one that absolutely broke my heart was Ahner’s greenhouse and gift shop. I had no idea it had closed until I drove by it. What a shock! It was not only closed, but going through some kind of deconstruction process that had it all hollowed out like a monstrous carcass on the side of the road. Brought tears to my eyes.

Have you lost a beloved product or store recently?

Ten Good Things About Getting Old

(Accompanied by garden pictures taken in the past couple of weeks.  The top is viburnum carlesii, and the bottom is passiflora 'Incense.')

1. Your face no longer breaks out. Unless you’re me, that is! But I mean if you’re normal, meaning not me, you probably stop getting zits.
2. The fact that you’re coloring the gray gives you an excuse to change your hair color often.
3. You and your hair have cohabited so long you’ve been forced to get along with each other. You’ve worn it poodle-permed and stick-straight. You’ve had almost every hair length, cut, and color that exists, so you know firsthand whether a certain style will make you look like Betty Boop…or poopy-doop. You even know exactly where to put the perm rods, how long to hold the hair in the curling iron, and which products make it look stringy. You have the home number of that perfect stylist who knows, via some sort of divine telepathy, exactly what cut you need even if you aren’t terribly sure yourself. You’ve had years and years to learn exactly how to subdue, control, and manipulate your hair in all kinds of weather. As a result, you have A LOT fewer bad hair days.
4. Young men no longer do favors for you as an excuse to get your phone number. They do favors for you because you look like their mom. Then they say, “You’re welcome, Ma’am” and go on their way.
5. You can be crabby and people sort of expect it.
6. Nobody heckles or grabs your rear end anymore.
7. Better friendships. Your best friend no longer breaks your plans to spend time with her boyfriend. She breaks her plans with her husband to spend time with you.
8. You can take a crisis better because you’ve been through only too many of them and know the pattern. You’ve learned that you are strong, and that this, too, really shall pass.
9. That whole wisdom thing. What you lose physically, you really do gain emotionally.
10. You can wear what you want because nobody cares. No one looks at your arms or legs, anyway, so you might as well go sleeveless and wear shorts! And make them purple!

“’Tell me one last thing, said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’

Dumbledore beamed at him….’Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’” J.K. Rowlings, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Worshiping the Photosynthesis Gods

There’s something about the sun glowing through leaves that sets my heart aflutter. Maybe it’s the innate recognition that within this greenery is the miraculous marriage of earth and sun and water and air. Or maybe it's the intuitive knowledge that this marriage creates this most unsung of immaculate conceptions, the birth of all that lives. Surely leaves are the sparks that fly from the hand of God. They are magical green machines that manufacture life.

Or maybe it’s just that we haven’t seen the sun for so darned long here in the Midwest...!

The above is a closeup of aglaia odorata, in lemony-fragrant bloom in my sun room. Ahhh.

"People, like all forms of life, only change when something so disturbs them that they are forced to let go of their present beliefs. Nothing changes until we interpret things differently. Change occurs only when we let go of our certainty. " ~ Dee Hock

"They" Were Wrong

When I was young, I used to be slightly haunted by a line in the John Cougar Mellencamp song that goes, “Oh yeah, they say life goes on/long after the thrill of living is gone.” I worried it might be true that the thrill of living leaves us as we age. How hard it would be to live life without that thrill, I thought.

And then during my divorce and the events that led up to it, I realized there was no thrill. Just relentless responsibilities, attacks, hassles, worries. And on top of it all, I worried about the loss of that thrill. Was it gone forever?

Today, on this November day, I look around. The ginger (above) is wafting the most lovely gardenia/papaya scent throughout the house. The passionflowers are still draping the French doors. Outside in the sunlight, a Bouncing Bet flower is still in bloom, and so is a rose. Sweet alyssum is everywhere. The dog is making me laugh, rolling in the grass and leaves, snorting, celebrating the luxuries of sun and earth and air. My daughter finally got over her flu and is playing classical music on the piano, the notes drifting out into the yard and into my soul. I recently heard from another loved one and couldn’t help but grin at the smile in his voice. Got the nicest letter—yes, letter!—from a friend I haven’t heard from in ages. Got a birthday card from another friend I haven’t heard from in even longer. Spent yesterday sipping wine and laughing with some great people at a winery, overlooking the hills of Augusta. When I look back over something sweet that happened at work last week, I can't help but smile. All of it gives me a thrill—all of it.

If someone had told me years ago that I would love this part of my life so much—divorced, and in the autumn of my years—would I have believed them? And yet not only is the thrill of living not gone, but I get it at the slightest, silliest things.

Oh, yeah, life goes on…and the thrill of living gets even more strong.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. ~Anne Frank

If Mohammed Can't Go to the Tropics

If you’ve ever seen a naked plumeria cutting, you would know why my little girl first dubbed this plant “The E.T. finger.” There is a vaguely alien quality to the bald little stick.

Rooting it wasn’t easy, either, since I got E.T. at the worst time of year for a plumeria that has the misfortune to live in the Midwest. I had to baby him throughout the winter on a heating pad, under lights, to get him to root. But root he did, and has been growing for at least six years now into quite a handsome little tree. Although plumerias only branch when they bloom, mine branched right away thanks to the inflorescence (flower thingy) that the cutting came with (but that dropped during the rooting process). Every year, I hoped that this would be the year it finally bloomed.

At first I thought it was a semi-bad thing that E.T. chose fall to bloom, since I would normally let him go dormant for winter storage this time of year. But I’ve been enjoying the blooms so much that it’s clear this was quite a blessing. I’m pretty sure it is Celadine, which I’ve read has a unique feature to the leaf edge. The scent is faint and less fruity than the plumeria products I’ve purchased in the past, but it’s still beachy and exotic—slightly coconutty and citrussy, like suntan lotion.

So maybe I can’t go to the tropics, but I’m feeling pretty pleased with having the tropics right here in Missouri. In November.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may—light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful. ~John Constable

One Great Smelling Fishbone

This is epiphyllum anguliger, or Fishbone Cactus, that bloomed last week. The flowers were the size of a cup and saucer with a scent that was mild, but heavenly...sort of jasmine/fruity/citrus. Delicious. This flower (to me) smells more like some plumeria products I've bought than actual plumeria does.

Every day I discover how little I know; it's just that I also discover that other people don't know as much as I thought. ~Gloria Steinem

A Room Just for Sun

It's been cold and rainy the past couple of days, and I'm wet and chilled from bringing plants in for the winter.

This is one of my very favorite places in all the world—my sunroom. This picture was taken back in July, and right now it leaves me with a sense of longing. I love the way it faces east, so I can watch the sun come up on weekend mornings, and south, so I can sit in the reach of a long ray on weekday evenings.

The direction of the windows means that the room glows most of the day, casting the doorway in its own golden, beckoning aura.

And when I do walk into the light, there are pools of aureate air where I can drench myself, feeling my pores opening in the baptismal beams as if in worship.

To me, it is a poem of light, this room...a prayer.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning...a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. ~Joseph Campbell

All Partied Out

This part cracks me up. The day after, it just looks so pooped.

Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. ~George Carlin

That Ain't No Lady

Here she is in all her glory—Queen of the Night Orchid or Night Blooming Cereus (though it’s really a jungle cactus). Some people actually have Night Blooming Cereus parties. Okay, admittedly not the most exciting-sounding party theme in the world; sounds a little like watching grass grow to me, but who knows.

What I do know is that Epiphyllum oxypetalum blooms are the size of a dessert plate and showy with a capital SHOW that borders on garish. The hoochy-coochy dancers of the flower world, they don’t whisper to potential pollinators, but shout at them with all manner of trumpets and fanfare and blowsy petticoats and beckoning ticklers and effusive nighttime perfume.

Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge. ~George Carlin

Growing Cereus-ness

I love this stage where the monstrous, pinkish, be-tentacled buds elongate and reach up as if ready to strike an unsuspecting victim. To me, these have a "Little Shop of Horrors" feel that makes me not want to turn my back on them....

Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!Feed me, Seymour Feed me all night long~"Little Shop of Horrors"

You Can't Be Cereus

The gardening season has entered its finale, where plants get in that last, desperate bloom.

I'm going to chronicle my Night Blooming Cereus bud. Even if you don't happen to be into gardening, I can't see how anyone could resist the allure of these fleshy alien space pods that dangle from a leaf. Though it's my understanding that "leaf," in this case, is really a misnomer; experts claim that the long, succulent leaves are actually modified stems.

“You are in exactly the time and place prepared for you. Believe in your own worth to the universe. Do not doubt. Do not be afraid. Do not act meanly. Take what comes--both the hard and easy—and learn from it. Advance ever. In the journey, you become yourself. . . Begin.”~ from "Secret of Spirit Lake" by Dan Skelton