SCARS OF SUMMER – The Perfect Beauty of Decay

We’re so accustomed, aren’t we, to equating beauty with symmetry, with youth…with perfection. I’m as guilty as anyone, I guess. But isn’t autumn the most persuasive invitation to revisit that bias?

Couldn’t we learn to see the fallen petals, the droops, curls, crimps and ragged seed heads not as flaws, but words in a poem about the patina of character?  

I want to see those blemishes as emblems of the joy each bloom has lent the eye, the food and nectar they’ve served up, the progeny borne, the artists inspired.

And, after all, as a lesson offered us older, equally-imperfect human beings on the meaning, the true value, of a life well lived?

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." ~ THEODORE ROETHKE

FREE AT LAST

A month ago, this soil was frozen over three feet deep. Just last week it gasped under 16 inches of snow.

At long last, like so many eager chicks bent on freedom, spring flowers—daffodil, iris, Siberian squill—peck through earth’s crumbly shell, beaks agape for spring’s soft rain and sun. 

PARTING SHOTS – Images of Late Summer

It's been a spectacular summer here in Minnesota. Blessed with warm days, yet very few 95-degree steam-bath stinkers we usually sweat our way through. Blessed with both ample sunshine and sufficient rain to keep most everything lush long after it usually wilts and turns brown—and to keep river levels high enough so I could navigate my favorite backwaters without my having to drag my canoe over mud flats and sand bars.

PHOTO: Phil Champion - http://www.philchampion.co.uk/ 

LAST LEGS
Hard to believe, isn't it, that just four months ago we were watching anxiously for the arrival of some sign, any sign, that another long, cold, grey winter was releasing its grip on the ground—and our spirits.

Eventually, though, summer did manage to take hold as it always does, and the profusion of rich, saturated color sprouted and spread over the grateful landscape. How I love all those shades of breathing green, the blankets of true, dense blue from early-blooming Siberian squill, the piercing reds of geranium and canna, the ravishing yellow-orange of goldenrod!

  I made up my mind...to see all these wonders 
  as if I'd never seen anything like them before.

But no sooner had this glorious season started than I could hear it ticking away. I made up my mind—as my posts here on One Man's Wonder and in the social media implore—to soak it all in, to see all these wonders of color, texture and pattern as if I'd never seen anything like them before. And I think I've done a pretty good job of it; I must have stopped a thousand times, as it were, to smell the roses.

But suddenly here we are; another Labor Day. The State Fair ends today, and ragweed's got me stuffing my pockets with Kleenex. At least symbolically, summer is over. Our window box plantings sense the cooler, drier air and, seeing right through our best efforts to fool them into thinking it's still June, have started to thin and shrivel. Everything else too—with the exception of those good old late-season standbys, like zinnia and chrysanthemum—seems on its last legs.

LETTING GO...NOT!
So, as I set out on my walk along the Mississippi yesterday, I was feeling kind of melancholy, almost anticipating an experience of loss. I was already mourning all the shrinking, browning plants and spent flowers I knew I'd come across. What made me even more blue was the looming prospect of five or six months devoid of all that fresh, living, breathing color.

      At least I'd have these poor excuses for the 
      real thing to comfort my color-starved soul 
      till tiny buds pop once again.

Of course, this wasn't at all what I found. Summer is indeed still alive here in growing zone four. But, as if to convince myself of this, I brought my camera. At the very least, I figured, that would help me notice and appreciate even more these resolute colors of late summer.

What's more, even if the dead of winter were somehow to slam down on us tomorrow, at least I'd have these poor excuses for the real thing to document the fleeting summer of 2015 and comfort my color-starved soul till tiny buds pop once again.

I hope you'll forgive the indulgence.

PHOTOS THIS GROUP: Jeffrey D. Willius

ONE PERSON’S WEED – Making Room For Life

I recall the first time I owned the adage, “One person’s weed is another’s wild flower.”* I’d been agonizing over my poor little lawn’s being swallowed up in creeping Charlie.

On its surface, creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea, a member of the mint family) is a fine plant, with gorgeous little lavender-violet, orchid-like flowers, fuzzy, scalloped-edge leaves and, perhaps best of all, an aromatic, sweet-spice aroma when handled. But it seemed its true nature was to "creep" relentlessly in tough tendrils, rooting anew as it spread and consuming everything in its path.

PHOTO: Artem Topchiy / Wikimedia Commons

I liked my grass. Even though it turned brown every fall, at least it kept its carpet-like texture, something I was afraid Charlie would not do. More than just my yardmate's behavior, though, it was that he was, well, uninvited.

I tried pulling it—kind of satisfying, like peeling off dried rubber cement from your fingers, but an endless battle. I raked it—that was like trying to comb one's hair with a hair net on. Finally, I went the most drastic route and sprayed it with borax, which, the instructions warned, I’d better do right or the monster would become resistant.

I didn’t…and it did.

I was still scheming when I learned that, in England, this wolf in sheep’s clothing is cultivated and sold in hanging baskets. People actually pay for it! Well, I thought, maybe this merits reconsideration.

       The difference is more profound than 
       one of perceptions; it is one of the spirit.

THE BEAUTY OF CHOICE
There’s great meaning and power for us human beings in controlling our environments. We like to choose what shares our space—you know, a sort of Manifest Destiny thing.

But so many of life's challenges are like plants; if we cannot see a place for them in our lives, they are weeds. But if we can bring ourselves to fully embrace their right to co-exist with us in the vast oneness of life, they become wildflowers. Not just unobtrusive companions, but our beautiful friends.

The difference is more profound than one of perceptions; it is one of the spirit, one that sees, more clearly than eyes can, that weeds grow around us; wildflowers, well, we grow around them.

Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), declared an unwanted, invasive species in Minnesota.

* Though I believed I originated this little truism, it’s credited at some quotes websites to Susan Wittig Albert, in her book, An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries.

COSAS PRECIOSAS II

A few more fleeting impressions as we walked around lovely Zihuatanejo today.

Frangipani flowers. Could these be any more delicious?

Hack & Snack - Coconut Vendor in El Centro

Ceiba (kapoc) tree with mega-thorns

Striking mural just off of Jose Morelos

...and leave the kniving to us!

No, really, Sweetheart, it was her hair!

Hangin' happy

Star Fruit - Andador 3

A BLUE SO TRUE – The Awakening of Wonder

It's my favorite season of the year...or at least it should be. Spring here in Minnesota is unusually slow to awaken this year. Parts of the state are still adding to the several feet of April snow they've already gotten, and even here in the Twin Cities piles of snow still flank driveways and parking lots.

But there are signs of hope. Among the most welcome harbingers of spring are those first brave little bulb flowers that dare poke their heads out of the barely thawed ground: crocus, in all its fresh sherbet colors; fragrant hyacinth; and my favorite, the plucky, exuberantly-blue scilla, or Siberian squill.

          Still more wonders lie in store, both in 
          the earth and in the human psyche.

This spring, more than most, the squill gives me hope. Hope that, after this insufferable winter, after a few personal challenges that I've allowed to send my spirit into hibernation, still more wonders lie in store, both in the earth and in the human psyche, awaiting nothing more than a few more rays of sun, a slight shift
in the jet stream...and our loving attention.

THE COLORS WE BRING – Adrift In a Sea of Gray

This has been a winter to remember, at least here in the U.S. Throughout much of the country, low temperatures and extraordinary snowfall amounts ranked it among the worst in decades. Here in Minneapolis/St. Paul, we’ve endured 53 days with temperatures dipping below zero Fahrenheit.

The most extraordinary thing about our winter has been not the amount of snowfall, but its frequency. Every few days, it seems, we’ve received at least a dusting of fresh snow. And, with so few days above freezing, there’s been a minimum of the sloppy gray mush we usually have to wade through as spring approaches.

All this snow is a mixed blessing; it’s brought out the sheer beauty that’s possible in winter. Sparkly-white-cloaked trees and landscapes, lakes and rivers you can walk and ski on, and the perverse joy of comrades together facing the arctic blast armed with shovels, skis and sleds.

PASS THE TABASCO
Nonetheless, having just returned to all this after a month in a place that’s never seen a single flake of snow—has me thinking about winter and how we manage to survive it with so little color.

Esthetically, it might seem that winters here in Minnesota are to those in warmer places as oatmeal is to a rich, spicy paella. For someone like me who draws nourishment from color, that can prove a pretty bland diet. It seems that, when all our buildings were designed, there must have been a shortage of materials—even paint—in any colors but shades of white, brown and gray.

People tend to stick to the same palette. Why, when our clothing could so easily splash a bit of vibrant color on our being, do so many of us choose black and gray? Okay, you’ll see some navy blue now and then, but...really, navy blue?

Compound this dreary palette with our low winter sun’s feeble output and daylight that’s snuffed by 4:30, and you have a recipe for what we call “cabin fever.” But, as Garrison Keeler captures so well in his reports from Lake Wobegon, we stoically accept what is and make the best of it.

SCARCE DELIGHTS
To be fair, when you really put your mind to it, there is, indeed, color to be found in a Minnesota winter. If you’re aware, you catch it in threads of vivid nylon sewn down a ski slope. It rises in the roaring flamboyance of a hot air balloon.

Indoors, it might wrap you in a bright, cozy throw or beguile you with the sizzling yellow and orange dance of a fire. It’s in a ruddy cheek, a warm smile and the resilient spirits of the folks you get to know so well when you’re housebound together for a while.

       It’s the pigment we bring to the mix that 
       ultimately determines the color we see.

And, for those of us unsatisfied with man-made color, even Nature teases us with her reluctant hues. Unlike those of summer that nearly accost you, these shades tend to lay low, obscure to all but the most determined eye. Yet, once found, they delight all the more for their scarcity.

They’re the raw umber and burnt sienna cloaks the oak trees refused to give up last autumn; the golden, burgundy, crimson, even chartreuse stems of dogwood and other shrubs; the gilded glow of sun setting over virgin snow; the quick red checkmark of a cardinal alighting for just an instant.

HARBINGERS OF SPRING
The color of winter is, at its best, a collaboration. Nature does her part, albeit begrudgingly. The rest is up to us. After all, it’s the pigment we bring to the mix—in our openness, our creativity, our zest for life, our rejection of cynicism—that ultimately determines the color we see.

Yes, you may have to look a little harder, perhaps open your heart and soul a bit further, but, as with anything in short supply, you learn to appreciate winter’s little wonders all the more for their incongruity. The alternative? Well, believe me, it can be an awfully long time between October and March.

And now March is almost gone, and still no break in this extraordinary winter’s cold, pale grip. Not even the brave pastels of crocus or the bold blue of Siberian squill have dared stick their tender heads out. Oh, for those first thaws when they will break through and show the way for all the other blooms, that profusion of spring and summer color to come.

My senses, my soul, can scarcely wait!

A NOSE FOR WONDER – Making Scents of Spring

To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers 
is a delectable form of defeat. ~ BEVERLY NICHOLS

A SMORGASBORD OF SMELLS
I was just walking along the high, wooded bluffs of the Mississippi, near my home. While there's certainly no shortage of beautiful things to see and hear and feel, I found myself homing in on smells.

Spring's such an amazing time to explore smell, that most underrated of our basic senses. Starting with the demure crocus, followed by voluptuous hyacinth, intoxicating lilac and enchanting lily of the valley, it seems the olfactory banquet serves up a new course or two every week—and so it goes, through most of the summer.

Today, now that many of those easy, early scents have come and gone, I was picking up on a couple of new ones. With a little research (grabbing anything that looked even remotely like a flower and putting my nose in it) I found that today's sweet fragrance was coming from the much maligned common buckthorn, an invasive shrub that's taking over vast tracts of forest understory, crowding out more polite species, including the hardiest of tree saplings.

       

For such an unsavory sort, buckthorn does have that one redeeming grace: it smells great. Detractors might deny it, because you can put your nose right on one of the barely recognizable flowers and not smell much at all. But en masse, and given the right conditions, they conspire to put out a surprisingly sweet aroma.

Here’s a simple exercise . . . check out every blossom you see and—you guessed it—smell it. 

UNLIKELY SUSPECTS
Buckthorn's just one of hundreds of unexpected botanical scents out there waiting to be discovered. If you want to see for yourself, here’s a simple exercise. From spring through autumn, check out every blossom you see and—you guessed it—smell it.

Even if it seems too common to be interesting, even if it looks like it couldn’t possibly have a smell, many will surprise you. Some will be heavenly; others will disappoint; a few might even offend. But each will be distinctive. Among the pleasant ones I’ve discovered:

• RUSSIAN OLIVE – a smell I call dusty-sweet
• GRAPE VINE – fresh and clean
• MILKWEED – one of the best smelling of all “weeds”
• HONEY LOCUST – heady, syrupy-sweet, almost overwhelmingly exotic
• HOSTA (some varieties) – subtle and surprising
• CLOVE CURRANT – distinctly spicy

And my favorite under-rated blossom so far, that of the BASSWOOD tree – reminds my wife and me of how someone smells right after they step out of the shower.

Find a grove of blooming basswoods on a 
warm summer day and you’ll be transported 
by the trees’ sweet, light fragrance.

 
A single basswood flower, like one of the buckthorn's, may be quite small and produce very little smell. But find a tree—or, better yet, a grove of blooming basswoods—on a warm summer day and you’ll be transported by the trees’ sweet, light fragrance.

We just discovered a mile-long row of basswoods running along a street in St. Paul, and can’t wait to walk or ride our bikes back and forth under it, bathed in that wonderful, intoxicating perfume.

SMELL A SPELL 
So get out there. Keep using all your beautiful senses. But don't let smell always get elbowed out by its more assertive cousins. Stop and close your eyes if necessary, plug your ears. Better yet, just set aside an hour or two and let Nature lead you around by the nose.

CLINGING TO SUMMER

Summer arrived late in Minnesota this year. Our tougher than usual winter seemed to drag on till mid-June, as if ten feet of ground frost were slowly seeping out. With days still cool and wet, rivers stayed high, gardeners put off their much-anticipated plantings, and muddy fields threatened to swallow tractors whole.

PHOTO: Phil Champion - http://www.philchampion.co.uk/

Eventually, though, summer did manage to take hold as it always does, and the profusion of rich, saturated color, though a few weeks late, sprouted and spread over the grateful landscape. How I love all those shades of breathing green, the blankets of true, dense blue from early-blooming Siberian squill, the piercing reds of geranium and canna!

I made up my mind...to see all these wonders of color, texture and pattern as if I'd never seen anything like them before.

As this shortish summer strove to make up for lost time, I made up my mind—as my posts here on One Man's Wonder and in the social media implore—to see all these wonders of color, texture and pattern as if I'd never seen anything like them before. Perhaps it was the fact of that imploring that helped me to do exactly that. I must have stopped a thousand times, as it were, to smell the roses.

But suddenly here we are; another Labor Day is history, the State Fair's come and gone, and ragweed's got me stuffing my pockets with Kleenex. At least symbolically, summer is over. Our window box plantings sense the cooler, drier air and, seeing right through our best efforts to fool them into thinking it's still June, are starting to thin and shrivel. Everything else too—with the exception of that good old fall standby, the chrysanthemum—seems just about on its last legs.

So, as I set out on my walk along the Mississippi yesterday, I was feeling kind of melancholy, almost anticipating an experience of loss. I was already mourning all the shrinking, browning plants and spent flowers I knew I'd come across. What made me even more blue was the looming prospect of five or six months devoid of all that fresh, living, breathing color.

At least I'd have these poor excuses for the real thing to...comfort my color-starved soul till tiny buds pop once again.

Of course, this wasn't at all what I found. Summer is indeed still alive here in growing zone four. But, as if to convince myself of this, I brought my camera. At the very least, I figured, that would help me notice and appreciate even more the resolute colors of late summer.

What's more, even if the dead of winter were somehow to slam down on us tomorrow, at least I'd have these poor excuses for the real thing to document the fleeting summer of 2011 and comfort my color-starved soul till tiny buds pop once again.

I hope you'll forgive the indulgence.

PHOTOS THIS GROUP: Jeffrey D. Willius