Today I was inspired by Mr. Wilson's May Day post to go outside and look at plants. I am fond of plants, and prefer that they live, therefore I've given up trying to grow things myself. Luckily my good friends/neighbours can handle it, so I went over there and hung out in the back yard.
Yoikes, those are really fast plants, though I will say that around here at least, Spring is running maybe a little bit ahead of schedule. Today I met a top birder, a real old-school type. Me, I’m a hippie-style birder: “ooh, that’s so pretty; now I am one with nature”, whereas this guy is in the classic Miss Jane Hathaway birdwatcher mold, but incredibly sharp; all ear, don’t even bother looking… He opined that in the 60s & 70s the arrival of the warblers was timed to the blooming of the Oaks, but now the trees are going off before the birds even get here. Whither Earth..?
Rant Alert: I used to go on camping and canoe trips when I was a kid. The big parks like Algonquin and Kilarney always seemed to be truly remote. Now, when I go canoe tripping as an adult, I know that Wilderness is pretty much overwith. The birds and animals are all crowded into these protected areas.There are several loon families per lake (they prefer a lake each), too many beavers, moose everywhere you turn. On special nights you can hear wolves howling, but you will never be sure whether it was really wolves, or a bunch of human wolf-tourists trying to get the real ones started up. It's wilderness still in the sense that you could maybe die there if you got cold and wet and broke your leg and your arm so you couldn't paddle back out, or a bear ate all your food and you were mute and paralysed and couldn't tell any of the other people who are having their special nature experience at the next campsite down the lake. But it's definitely not Wilderness in any sense of being a viable Other. Big as the park is, there is a nice tidy boundary around it that might keep out hunters and highways (not even) but can't do anything about the fundamental fact of human ownership of matter.
I find this genuinely heartbreaking. And I have trouble not spiralling into dystopia about the planet. I love canoe trips; paddling on lakes makes me happy in a deep-breath, open-hearted kind of way. But last time I went, sitting on the bumper-to-bumper multi-lane highway from Toronto to "natureland of the north", sun glinting off the roofs of a million fossil fuel guzzling cars and suvs, each trailing more fossil fuel guzzling jetskis and boats and motorbikes etc, I decided to stop participating in what I've come to see as a blind, desperate cultural gluttony for a Wilderness that does not exist. Whither Earth indeed.
Right now I prefer the urban park with daily dog and squirrel wars, the vacant lot with hunting kestrels, the weeds between the sidewalk cracks, the Leslie Spit which is a sort of huge non-spiral jetty made from construction fill that grows rare blanket flowers and hosts a ring-bill gull colony, the whip smart racoons that live in our attics and take whatever they want from us (especiallly the one that sat on my roof and threw pebbles my head). So yeah, my plants are going too fast. I want them to be vigorous, to be terrifying, to bust through the fence and across the alley and wreck the foundations and fill up the eaves troughs. It's a childish, self-indulgent fantasy, but a little fiction now and then keeps us (well, me anyway) strong.
Bill! you're scaring me. Is that Britney? Whoever she is, that chick is slow.
That's Christina.
ah, six of one...
So what does she represent, silenced songbird, or am I missing a sound file?
Your posts have got me thinking about May. There is a German saying that "all good things brings May." My fingers are crossed, but I have to say I am heavy hearted.
When I was young my school celebrated May Day. Each class had to choreograph their own skit, song, dance to be performed around the Maypole. The oldest class got to do the Maypole dance and weave brightly colored ribbons around the pole - in what seemed a very elaborate dance. It was magic to my wide eyes and all of April was spent in anticipation. (a regret that stays with me to this day is that I did not stay in that school long enough to weave the ribbons around the pole). It is a nostalgic time.
Two songs from two different years stay with me, the latter of which has been stuck in my head since reading mr wilson’s post.
“Inch by inch, row by row,
gonna make this garden grow.
All we need is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground…”
(of course all kinds of miming went with this song. Including the boys lifting the girls legs up the air to create a wheelbarrow – there was much dismay as underwear was exposed – and a small verse of “I see london I see france” erupted, followed by giggling and an entire performance meltdown).
“a branch of May
I bring to you
and at your door I’ll stand.
It’s nothing but a sprout,
but it’s well and it’s strong
and the work of god’s own hands…”
and sally mckay, I really like your fast plants (this is not an after-thought).
they make me feel like an ant. an overwhelmed ant.
and I think I see a fiddlehead? I love how they look.
thank you Selma! I like your May thoughts. Sorry you are heavy hearted. Spring can be onerous and demanding, and so can world events.
world events, yes. those photos just make me sick.
yeah, me too. I'm sure you've seen Tom's links. Reading about it and talking about it helps me feel better, though still stuck and frustrated. The Seymour Hersch article in the New Yorker is pretty good. Getting together with friends you trust to talk about this kind of thing is good and generative.
If you have friends like mine, sometimes there is too much talk (said laughingly). But yes, I know what you mean. The New Yorker piece is a must read. Let's think Spring and fiddleheads (or are we almost at summer?)
o and we have cinco de mayo coming up - that's a good one.
"sometimes there is too much talk" ...hah! I hear you.
It's not summer around here. but that's okay. Let the fiddleheads have some time to unfold before it gets hot.
sometimes an avatar is just an avatar. tom and sally collect gifs, so i post them haphazardly as i find 'em. nice piece sal
"sometimes an avatar is just an avatar" ...dude! I've been looking for a new mantra. nice one.
Good rant and .gif about "nature."
I've been trying to figure out what Aguilera is singing. It looks like an "f" consonant when her head comes down sharply, followed almost immediately by a "th", but that's as much as I can get.
I've been trying to figure it out too. I'm hampered by getting all these hot babe singers mixed up. For a while I thought it was "I only fly away," but that's Nelly Furtado. She's a brunette.
you mean, it's not "I only fly away"? All this time...
Selma: I don't expect anyone to actually read the old stuff, but your second quote is the source for my 2000 May Day post (also see) and all invitations stand...
Thank you Alex. I was a bit off on the quote. without reading your older post (and now having), I am glad to have thought of that song in reading your 2004. (Is that a bit odd that 3rd graders were singing that? no answer needed) I am glad to be re-connect to the song in its entirety.
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Today I was inspired by Mr. Wilson's May Day post to go outside and look at plants. I am fond of plants, and prefer that they live, therefore I've given up trying to grow things myself. Luckily my good friends/neighbours can handle it, so I went over there and hung out in the back yard.
- sally mckay 5-02-2004 2:16 am
Yoikes, those are really fast plants, though I will say that around here at least, Spring is running maybe a little bit ahead of schedule. Today I met a top birder, a real old-school type. Me, I’m a hippie-style birder: “ooh, that’s so pretty; now I am one with nature”, whereas this guy is in the classic Miss Jane Hathaway birdwatcher mold, but incredibly sharp; all ear, don’t even bother looking… He opined that in the 60s & 70s the arrival of the warblers was timed to the blooming of the Oaks, but now the trees are going off before the birds even get here. Whither Earth..?
- alex 5-02-2004 7:32 am
Rant Alert: I used to go on camping and canoe trips when I was a kid. The big parks like Algonquin and Kilarney always seemed to be truly remote. Now, when I go canoe tripping as an adult, I know that Wilderness is pretty much overwith. The birds and animals are all crowded into these protected areas.There are several loon families per lake (they prefer a lake each), too many beavers, moose everywhere you turn. On special nights you can hear wolves howling, but you will never be sure whether it was really wolves, or a bunch of human wolf-tourists trying to get the real ones started up. It's wilderness still in the sense that you could maybe die there if you got cold and wet and broke your leg and your arm so you couldn't paddle back out, or a bear ate all your food and you were mute and paralysed and couldn't tell any of the other people who are having their special nature experience at the next campsite down the lake. But it's definitely not Wilderness in any sense of being a viable Other. Big as the park is, there is a nice tidy boundary around it that might keep out hunters and highways (not even) but can't do anything about the fundamental fact of human ownership of matter.
I find this genuinely heartbreaking. And I have trouble not spiralling into dystopia about the planet. I love canoe trips; paddling on lakes makes me happy in a deep-breath, open-hearted kind of way. But last time I went, sitting on the bumper-to-bumper multi-lane highway from Toronto to "natureland of the north", sun glinting off the roofs of a million fossil fuel guzzling cars and suvs, each trailing more fossil fuel guzzling jetskis and boats and motorbikes etc, I decided to stop participating in what I've come to see as a blind, desperate cultural gluttony for a Wilderness that does not exist. Whither Earth indeed.
Right now I prefer the urban park with daily dog and squirrel wars, the vacant lot with hunting kestrels, the weeds between the sidewalk cracks, the Leslie Spit which is a sort of huge non-spiral jetty made from construction fill that grows rare blanket flowers and hosts a ring-bill gull colony, the whip smart racoons that live in our attics and take whatever they want from us (especiallly the one that sat on my roof and threw pebbles my head). So yeah, my plants are going too fast. I want them to be vigorous, to be terrifying, to bust through the fence and across the alley and wreck the foundations and fill up the eaves troughs. It's a childish, self-indulgent fantasy, but a little fiction now and then keeps us (well, me anyway) strong.
- sally mckay 5-02-2004 7:40 pm
- bill 5-02-2004 9:27 pm
Bill! you're scaring me. Is that Britney? Whoever she is, that chick is slow.
- sally mckay 5-02-2004 11:34 pm
That's Christina.
- LM (guest) 5-03-2004 1:41 am
ah, six of one...
- sally mckay 5-03-2004 5:09 am
So what does she represent, silenced songbird, or am I missing a sound file?
- alex 5-03-2004 6:08 am
Your posts have got me thinking about May. There is a German saying that "all good things brings May." My fingers are crossed, but I have to say I am heavy hearted.
When I was young my school celebrated May Day. Each class had to choreograph their own skit, song, dance to be performed around the Maypole. The oldest class got to do the Maypole dance and weave brightly colored ribbons around the pole - in what seemed a very elaborate dance. It was magic to my wide eyes and all of April was spent in anticipation. (a regret that stays with me to this day is that I did not stay in that school long enough to weave the ribbons around the pole). It is a nostalgic time.
Two songs from two different years stay with me, the latter of which has been stuck in my head since reading mr wilson’s post.
“Inch by inch, row by row,
gonna make this garden grow.
All we need is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground…”
(of course all kinds of miming went with this song. Including the boys lifting the girls legs up the air to create a wheelbarrow – there was much dismay as underwear was exposed – and a small verse of “I see london I see france” erupted, followed by giggling and an entire performance meltdown).
“a branch of May
I bring to you
and at your door I’ll stand.
It’s nothing but a sprout,
but it’s well and it’s strong
and the work of god’s own hands…”
- selma 5-03-2004 10:03 pm
and sally mckay, I really like your fast plants (this is not an after-thought).
they make me feel like an ant. an overwhelmed ant. and I think I see a fiddlehead? I love how they look.
- selma 5-03-2004 11:00 pm
thank you Selma! I like your May thoughts. Sorry you are heavy hearted. Spring can be onerous and demanding, and so can world events.
- sally mckay 5-03-2004 11:49 pm
world events, yes. those photos just make me sick.
- selma 5-03-2004 11:58 pm
yeah, me too. I'm sure you've seen Tom's links. Reading about it and talking about it helps me feel better, though still stuck and frustrated. The Seymour Hersch article in the New Yorker is pretty good. Getting together with friends you trust to talk about this kind of thing is good and generative.
- sally mckay 5-04-2004 12:10 am
If you have friends like mine, sometimes there is too much talk (said laughingly). But yes, I know what you mean. The New Yorker piece is a must read. Let's think Spring and fiddleheads (or are we almost at summer?)
- selma 5-04-2004 12:14 am
o and we have cinco de mayo coming up - that's a good one.
- selma 5-04-2004 12:20 am
"sometimes there is too much talk" ...hah! I hear you.
It's not summer around here. but that's okay. Let the fiddleheads have some time to unfold before it gets hot.
- sally mckay 5-04-2004 12:20 am
sometimes an avatar is just an avatar. tom and sally collect gifs, so i post them haphazardly as i find 'em. nice piece sal
- bill 5-04-2004 1:05 am
"sometimes an avatar is just an avatar" ...dude! I've been looking for a new mantra. nice one.
- sally mckay 5-04-2004 1:27 am
Good rant and .gif about "nature."
I've been trying to figure out what Aguilera is singing. It looks like an "f" consonant when her head comes down sharply, followed almost immediately by a "th", but that's as much as I can get.
- tom moody 5-04-2004 3:20 am
I've been trying to figure it out too. I'm hampered by getting all these hot babe singers mixed up. For a while I thought it was "I only fly away," but that's Nelly Furtado. She's a brunette.
- sally mckay 5-04-2004 4:03 am
you mean, it's not "I only fly away"? All this time...
- tshirttheory (guest) 5-04-2004 4:55 am
Selma: I don't expect anyone to actually read the old stuff, but your second quote is the source for my 2000 May Day post (also see) and all invitations stand...
- alex 5-04-2004 5:04 am
Thank you Alex. I was a bit off on the quote. without reading your older post (and now having), I am glad to have thought of that song in reading your 2004. (Is that a bit odd that 3rd graders were singing that? no answer needed) I am glad to be re-connect to the song in its entirety.
- selma (guest) 5-04-2004 7:29 pm