kabloom

•



Forgive me.

But I feel like waxing philosophic when I should probably be waxing the kitchen floor. But it is a holiday! And this is about catching your breath, becoming aware of your surroundings and taking the time to appreciate life, what we have, the natural world around us, even in the city. Especially in the city.

It's about stopping to smell the metaphorical roses, or better still, the real roses. I post a lot about flowers because I am constantly taken aback by their beauty and variety of form. Their sculpture, even knowing that their form follows function, i.e. to attract pollinators. They are not here for us to appreciate; they're here to be alluring to bugs. We're a nonstarter, a flash in the pan.

Flowering plants have been on this earth for at least 125 million years. (We've only been around about two million and most of that we were not even wearing pants.) Estimates vary but there are between 250,000 and 400,000 species of flowering plants around the planet. Seeing them all would take multiple lifetimes, which we do not have. We only have one, so we need to pack as much awareness into it as we possibly can.

Of late I have been paying particular attention to nascent flowers. Newbies. Infants. Like a new father standing in the maternity ward of a hospital, made goggle-eyed by the newborn babies lying in clusters just beyond the protective glass, I have been cooing natal blooms, flowers just beginning to unfurl. And what I have discovered is, yet more beauty: softness, texture, intricacy, complexity, pattern, color, grace.

Now, here we have a holiday. Independence Day. So be independent. Why don't you forgo the crowd, the loud, smoky fireworks. Instead, turn on the stereo, put in the Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg, listen to the opening movement and then go outside and enjoy a "kablooming" flower instead?

Happy holiday. Peace be with you.

For other floral newbies go to: queen and spiny.

- Photo of a newborn sunflower taken at Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area