Doug thinks of birthdays in astronomical terms. Congratulations on completing another orbit, he’ll say, and I picture myself zooming out into space, floating planet-like against a background of dark sky and bright stars, hair wafting, skirt billowing. Whereas in fact, on the evening completing this particular orbit, we were having dinner at a luxurious restaurant, consuming the products of sunlight on farm fields and pastures filtered through ten thousand years of agriculture and the hands of chefs and waiters, as anchored to earth as we could be as it rolled us through the universe.
When we look at the sky we don’t usually consider that we’re in it, even when clouds come all the way down to the ground. Sometimes we see in those clouds a metaphor for gloom, sadness, and unhappy fates; at other times an end to drought, a gift to farmers, a respite from heat. Was the storm coming or going in this photo? There was certainly a real answer, a weather map answer, at the moment the photo was taken. Lifted from its moment as a photo is, we can give it any story that suits us where we are now.
Here’s another beautiful Michigan scene, enhanced, I would say, by clouds. It’s a local farm’s You Pick flower patch in its days of former glory, gone to standing seedheads, offering nourishment to such small creatures as hang on here while we orbit through the winter. The clouds, again, connect us to the sky.
Or here are some extremely, maybe even comically, muscular clouds, seen through my workroom window in their brief existence. I expected drama from such clouds – maybe a tornado? Hailstones? Nothing happened; they dissolved into airy nothing, the natural element of clouds.
It’s an old saying, that you need clouds sometime, to appreciate the clear blue skies when they come. I say appreciate the clouds. They do wonderful things with the sun, which you can’t look at without their intercession. They decorate the sky, giving us a reason to keep our focus upward. I mean the real clouds here, but feel free to apply it as a metaphor wherever you need one. Happy orbiting.
The forget-me-nots have gone to seed and the late asparagus spears have grown tall and branched into ferns, but the Michigan spring continues to overwhelm me with beauty and drama. This peony, though it’s originally an heirloom bred 150 years ago in France, is nevertheless called Festiva Maxima, which is Latin for Big Party. It produces lots of flowers in conditions where other peonies pout. Definitely a party girl, not a wallflower.
In the even showier department, this one’s called Bowl of Beauty. The outer petals are more curved than they look in my photo, so yes, quite bowl-like.
For drama, how about this sky? I was assured there was no threat of tornado, but it sure looked like it had something up its sleeve. Not even rain, as it turned out. Just drama.
No rain so no rainbow so no pot of gold, but a plot of good fortune. They don’t always leap out at me, but I have two clumps of clover in my garden that regularly produced four-leaf clovers last year. They’ve come through again. One four-leafer lurks deep in the center of this photo.
Then there’s mystery – this little path that looks like it goes somewhere magical, or at least interesting. Nope. It goes to my hose bib. Appearances can be deceiving; in fact, in a garden, we often aim for that. In Japanese gardening tradition this is called Borrowed Landscape. My lawn fades into my neighbor’s lawn before you get to that fence.
And so we have it all here – beauty, drama, fortune, intrigue. I’ve been out in it all day, weeding, planting, staking, and of course spraying deer deterrent. When I find a four-leaf clover I bring it in, put it in a vase until it withers, then make a wish and add it to my “luck basket.” Still the same wish, and I can’t say what it is but we’ll all be very happy if it comes true.
Robin Richstone 