Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
‘The paleness of timidity. The green of the fern ring and the cotton-ball vagueness of the the apple blossoms are testimony to the harshness of the winter past.’
(Landscape orientation)
The scene is from the window on the side of our house. This window is, technically, on the second floor, and therefore while the lawn in the immediate foreground is visible (and somewhat foreshortened) one can see the tree house to the far left (middle) and the sky to the upper left (middle).
Despite the scene being comprised of: lawn, white-blossomed apple tree, pale-green circle of fern rising around a large tree stump, one relatively healthy pine tree and the aforementioned treehouse (a darkened rectangle higher among the trees than a darkened rectangle should be), everything is pale and faded looking.
Its almost as if the effort to survive the Winter past has so depleted the resources of all plants that all they can do is sorta stand there and try to remain upright while catching their photosynthetic breath.
Non-winter weekend looks to have the potential for sweating and earth-moving, two of my five favorite things to do. I will save the specifics of (any) yard projects for my list (I didn’t start blogging yesterday, ya know). Hopefully I’ll have some interesting photos of Una and the garden and such.
This is, of course, the Ten Things of Thankful, aka the TToT bloghop. Each week our host, Josie Two Shoes raises the shades, opens a window or two and welcomes any and all to share their lists of things and people, events and places that elicited and otherwise caused them to feel grateful since last we gathered.
1) Una
2) Phyllis
3) the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) Well, you know, “...if you can think it, it deserves to be a Rule“.
4) Val (and Lisa and the gang at the Six Sentence Story). We had another dueling Six Sentence Story. (Not dueling in the sense of adversarial, dueling as in ….well, two of them. lol) So I did a Six Sentence Story of the noir variety and Val graciously accepted the challenge to write her own Six Sentence Story based on the scene. Here, read it for your ownselfs…. Story One, Story Two*
5) Work (where I’ve happened upon a rare ‘asleep-at-the-wheel’ moment over at ‘the youtube’…. I hope the link lasts long enough for you to enjoy the Abbey Road cut below…at the moment, however, I’m listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Damn, them mop-tops sho were talented fellas)
6) the Graviteers: val and kristi, joy and may and, back with the ‘F = Gm1m2/r2 Posse’, lisa.
7) Garden projects (tbd)**
8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE (anyone needing a hand getting started on a TToT post, send in your items in a comment, I’ll post it/them here and before you can say ‘Come on down!’ you’ll be totally having fun.)
9) Sunday Supplement (in photos, of course)
‘Phyllis planting flowers at the foot of Ola’s grave, a nearby tree bends a knee in respect to her efforts.’
(Landscape orientation)
Standing beyond the far-corner of the fenced-in portion of the backyard, looking back towards the house, we see Ola’s grave in the lower-left foreground. In this same, lower-half of the photo, to the opposite side, is a most remarkable pine tree.
Leaving the ground (as do all trees) the trunk rises about a foot only to dip down in a curve towards the earth, as if ambivalent about the decision to leave the protection of the ground. The curve, showing a girth of, say, a full-grown telephone pole, brushes the orangy-brown pine needles that carpet this part of the yard, then sweeps upwards at an angle. Like an airplane finally committed to taking off from the runway or a dolphin, it’s dream of exploring the world of air, now too strong, shoots upwards for the clouds.
Phyllis is seen kneeling at the foot of the grave, her face and upper body are dark and lighter colors, enough flesh-tone to prevent us from thinking that another tree has taken root to guard Ola’s grave.
Our eyes are drawn to a small spark of the blue jeans that mark the spot on which Phyllis is resting. Seeing this blue (a color that is kind of startling in contrast to the sea of greens and browns), we immediately see others directly in front of her. She is bringing color and variety to the area, not to highlight the quiet hues, but, like Ola herself, to add an element of motion and un-restrained life.
The gravesite is of the traditional rectangular shape. Mostly a beach-sand grey shade with dashes of browns and weightless blacks that give texture to the otherwise smooth surface. The shape of the grave is defined by a single row of (lighter) grey cobblestones, marking the perimeter, squat guards carved from a substance that has survived the ages. At the far end of the sandy grave (from Ola’s favorite beach) is the marker. A smaller rectangle of stone, part reflectively smooth, part etched with letters, the letters borrow from the material they are cut from, the solidity and permanence of the granite, Ola’s name and the dates of her time with us.
‘Una and the garden-to-be that bears the likeness of her name.’
(Landscape orientation).
Lying on the lower bout of the letter ‘U’ that starts Una’s garden, the namesake of the aforementioned garden looks up at the camera (and in doing so, at us) and manages to convey an expression of enthusiastic acceptance of the responsibility for protecting the garden-that-would-be. Of course, given the garden is, at the time of this photo, simply a curved rectangle of dark brown earth, we are encouraged to believe that Una is protecting the garden from the encroaching green of the surrounding lawn.
10) SR 1.3
* the comments at Val’s were as much fun as I’ve seen in a while, you totally should consider join in on the Six Sentence fun next week
** yeah, might be taking the ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ just a bit far…
About clarkscottroger
FRIST, FRISTO, FRISTO-MUNDO, FRISTORAMA.
Picture’s a bit ghost like, ethereal looking.
# A regular SSS is challenging and fun but doing a spin off SSS from yours? ….ya better buckle up! :D
tru dat
Such a lovely not winter, i am sure it is inspiring. Your list, as it always does, made me smile.
Someday i would like to know more about this Secret Book of Rules.
Thanks
…ah ha! About that Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules) one might say, it (the BoSR/SBoR) is the semi-codified system of guides, rules and permissions that often occupy a corner of our minds…when we’re about twelve to twenty years old. They are the official ‘yes but’ and the only requirement is, like many of us heard as children, ‘we put as much effort into writing the Rule as we would simply doing it (whatever it is) like everyone else’.
Its a lot of fun and, heck, we all run into blocks and detours enough as it is, the Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules) gives us license to take the road less travelled as we write our posts.
End of winter fatigue, but things are coming to life. Happy Spring Clark.
Yeah… even though it seems to be a matter of ‘fits and starts’, we are out of the winter. Have a good Spring yourself ‘up there’.
Looking forward to your Sunday supplement, lol. How warm is it up there? It got “warm” here about two weeks ago, enough to be fairly certain that outdoor plants wouldn’t suffer from a bit of frost.
To that end, I was still running around with a light jacket yesterday, mumbling something about how I can’t wait for that part of the summer where, even in the morning, one does not have to bundle up to experience the outside. I can’t wait to just walk out in a pair of shorts and t-shirt and not freeze. lol.
And of course, so glad for the Doctrine. :)
Got some photos… kinda of a slow yard afternoon, good, late March day today around here. lol
Thank you for saying that ‘wearing a jacket in the morning’ now I don’t have feel like such an old man lol…. (over-dressed for the weather).
I used to say, ‘I get warm in June and start to get cold in September’ I might need to move that up to July lol
Yeah, it was 85 in Asheville yesterday. There was I, wearing my hoodie for most of the day. Except when I went directly into the sun. You’re not the only one. Promise. 🤣
yeah… the ‘real’ effect of climate change will surely be expressed by this increased dynamics in weather conditions…
It was a perfect Mother’s Day – thank-you!
Let the plantings begin (continue). Sharing a perspective with you is always interesting.
what a nice (and essentially kind) thing to say!
Once again you have out done yourself with describing your photos! Excellent. Trying “to remain upright while catching their photosynthetic breath” is quite the poetic line.
Ola’s grave appears to be in a very sacred place. I love that Phyllis is planting flowers by the grave.
Beautiful photo of Una protecting her garden spot.
thank you Pat.
Ola’s grave was what, were I writing a post or a story, I might describe as a terrible labor of love; the pain of losing a loved one seems to be proportional to the good they brought us
hey, speaking of stories… lol no, wait! hear me out! this multi-perspective experiment with the Six Sentence Story, if you ever feel like it would be fun, let me know. (btw: not all my Sixes need be the noir or detective kind of backstory…)