Quiet

Posted by Melissa

I didn't mean to post today. I meant to take a dreamy walk in the woods, and I did. It was beautifully quiet, a deep well of silence with small sounds delicately treading the surface--a trilling bird, the tiny crunch of rocks beneath my bare feet, a squirrel scurrying up a tree. The woods are green with only a few small blossoms, but the blossoms were sweet and I wanted to take their pictures, so I went back with a camera. It was the same path but a different walk. I heard a mower, another machine that sounded like a great big vacuum cleaner, children yelling.

"Oh no, the pictures will be ruined" I thought, as if all the noise would blow away the tiny flowers. What really happened was my lousy camera skills couldn't capture what I saw, but here they are anyway.

Have a lovely weekend, and check back Monday for another little angel!

Angel number seven

Posted by Melissa

She is brushing an ant off a peony bud. (Why do ants like peonies so much?)  She is in her choir robe and is hurrying back to choir practice, but I think she should watch where she's going. She's a little too taken up with her flowers to be quite safe flying.

 

 These peach flowers remind me of another peach flower I once met. When I was in third or fourth grade in Maryland, my class took a field trip to that lovely city, Annapolis. We were walking along a shady brick sidewalk, when I saw leaning over a fence (was it a cast iron fence?) a peach rose. In its setting of red brick and well-tended green it was astoundingly beautiful. I had never seen a rose that color. "Look at that," I burst out to the girl beside me. She was embarrassed, slightly angry, and she said, "Don't be so enthusiastic. It's just a rose." I felt shaken, jarred into a duller, dimmer place. I learned a lesson about being openly enthusiastic over beauty. Maybe I had already learned that lesson, but I forgot it when that peach rose took me off guard.

And they remind me of something else. In fifth grade, near the end of the school year we had a school outing to a local city park. Near the entrance was a mature border of peonies in full bloom. Once again I was astounded. "What are these?" I asked. My teacher said "Oh, they're peenies." She was a kindly Mennonite lady who wore homemade dresses and a white mesh cap on the back of her head. I don't know when I learned that peenies are actually peonies.

Angel number six

Posted by Melissa

My childhood landscape was woods, creeks, cow pastures, cornfields and scrubby uncultivated ground, which I suppose had once been cultivated, or it would have been woods. That uncultivated ground was a treasure world of weeds, rocks, wildflowers, blackberries, poison ivy and  rare, lone wild strawberry plants with one or two tiny, soft, red, red berries. The flavor of those berries is, I truly believe, the most pleasurable flavor I have ever encountered--sweet and concentrated essence of strawberry. Surely this little angel has berries so delicious. 

The leaves in the photo are from a wild plant that I think is called false strawberry. It's a related plant, with pretty yellow blossoms and red berries that look like strawberries but are watery and surprisingly flavorless--no sweet, no sour, nothing.

One thing I love about strawberry plants is that they have on them  at the same time beautiful berries and beautiful blossoms.

Angel number five

Posted by Melissa 

The fragrance, the grace, the delicate colors of many garden flowers suggest beauty beyond this earth. Growing out of the earth, roses, lilies of the valley, peonies, sweet peas point to something beyond this earth, beyond our imagination. Geraniums don't do that. They typify wholesome, old-fashioned, completely grounded domesticity. They don't have divine fragrance, but they smell clean and fresh, like an aromatic vegetable.

This little bearer of a pink geranium is a practical, competent person. She's gifted with sunny common sense, and she is exactly the sort you want around if you're planning a garden party and you need help getting organized and cleaning up a few messes. Of course, that doesn't stop her from wearing pretty clothes. Why not? She's the kind of person who can get the job done while staying fresh, cool and clean.

Angel number four

Posted by Melissa 

She doesn't have a pouch on her dress because she forgot to change out of her choir robe into her work robe.

Poor thing had to have her wing replaced. I thought I'd have to redo her entirely, then I remembered that these are for digital reproduction and Photoshop can do many wondrous things.

 

 

Angel number three

posted by Melissa

Yes, she did pull the watering can out of her pouch. No, she did not really need it. The earth was nice and damp from melted snow and a few good rains. She just likes giving flowers a drink. When one of my children was quite small, I found her outside on a rainy day with a watering can, proudly, happily giving the flowers a drink. This little angel is cut from the same cloth. If you're wondering how she fit the can in her pouch, see yesterday's post.

I struggled a lot with this one. I took dozens of rotten pictures, pulled out my pencils and worked on her some more, took dozens more rotten pictures and finally chose the least rotten picture. I thought about featuring another angel today, but I decided instead that this would be an exercise in good enough. Recognizing and accepting the good enough is an important part of my creative learning curve. It leaves me with the energy to persevere. I believe it leads to better work overall if I don't obsess about a piece that is troubling me. And a funny thing that happens sometimes is that a piece I'm unhappy with is someone else's favorite.

 

 I do want to figure out how to take better pictures.

Angel number two

Posted by Melissa

She suggested turning off the flash, and I think she was right.   Maybe I'll take a new picture of  angel number one without a flash and add it to yesterday's post.

Her pocket is like Mary Poppins' carpet bag.  It has just about endless capacity. Right now she's carrying the clippers she used to cut the roses, a garden hose with a sprayer attached, and a small step ladder. Yes, she has wings, but when you're picking Japanese beetles off a trellised rose its just easier to stand on a ladder than to hover a foot off the ground.