We pretty much live in the backyard during the summer. So every year we go a little crazy with plants and flowers. I tried to exercise a little restraint this year, retire a few terracotta pots, and avoid the jungle of heirloom tomatoes we had in years past. One year I planted purple perilla in pots on the fronts steps, and I have been pulling perilla from the pavers ever since. Last year, the lime green potato vines threatened to take over the patio, so I've decided to stick to purple instead. Doesn't it seem you have to learn things the hard way with plants?

City and Colour - The Girl

Happy Friday, folks! This song is three years old, but it never loses its charm. Don't you agree?
I just wonder, what's he doing in our neighborhood ravine?

Random

Today, my friend Kathleen shared this quote. "The most important parts of life are found in small truths, easily missed - the world within is the root of the one without - and the search for meaning is more about the search than the meaning." Jesh De Rox, Experiential Photographer

And then she shared this link. Which helped me immensely, because I've been all over the place lately. I feel like I delete as many pictures as a take these days. So take these little random shots for what they are worth, a search for order.

Layers

I love layers, adding them on, peeling them away, making them almost indiscernable. Here I've combined two pictures into one. I wonder how far I can push it.

I ran across Wallace Stevens' The Idea of Order at Key West, and something new about it hits me every time.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there was never a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

My movements were restricted to the house and backyard today because a nasty bug has taken up residence in my chest. That aside, I like inspecting the little worlds that exist outside, even on a gray rainy day.

I've been reading a James Merrill poem that works for me this week, which I will paraphrase for you;
May you shine back always,
From what you see, from others. So welcome, friend.
Welcome to earth, time, others; to
Those cool darks, of sense, of language,
Each at once a thread and maze.

a hundred visions and revisions

Okay, so only four. The title is a line from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which I've been reading and rereading a lot lately. I'm working on pictures that are merely okay, and trying to make them into something quite different. And yes, I'm a little hooked on infrared and inversion today. While talking to a friend recently, he said, "You can never have too much glow." No, indeed.

Feeling Good - Nina Simone

I love this video ... can there be a better song for Friday afternoon?
Have a lovely weekend, friends!

My Morning Commute

Recently, I decided to listen to French language CD’s in the car on my way to work. Since I haven’t made a special effort to learn it during my down time, I thought this might be a nice approach to improving my vocabulary. But it turns out that the CD’s I have are meant to accompany a text book. I don’t know how recently you’ve had the opportunity to notice this first-hand, but police officers tend to suspend their support of education and self-improvement when it comes to driving and reading text books simultaneously. So, for now, I’ve replaced those CD’s with Pink Martini as a surrogate. I can now, with confidence and perfect pronunciation, sing useful phrases such as, “I have body parts scattered all over the streets of Paris.” and, “I do not want to have lunch, I only want to forget.” and, “Where are my feet?”

I digress. I’ve been paying particular attention to the music I listen to and the effect it has on me lately. There’s a little project I have underway that merges my interest in music and photography. I should have more to talk about in a month or two, but for now, “J’ai perdu mes bras sur la Place de l’Opera.”

Petals

Every Spring, I think I take some iteration of this picture; petals fallen on the sidewalk. There's something compelling to me about how, once removed from their original context, they take on a different spirit, a kind of pathos. It reminds me of my favorite painting at the Columbus Museum of Art, a rather small poetic thing by Odilon Redon called The Two Graces. Elegant and simple, the two figures, arm-in-arm, with what appears to be rose petals at their feet. Lovely, no?