wondering

There are times of wondering and times of knowing.  Here I sit wondering.  In reading Grace's post recently, I started thinking, again, about hard times in our lives.  I have been reading Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way by Ruth Reichl.  You can find it here.  And while my mother was nothing like hers,  I have known mothers that were.  Some of what she writes relates to everyone's mother and the words stop me cold.  I feel safe saying that everyone has hard times now and then.  So, I am left thinking about my mom again, and I wonder when does the missing get easier?  I ask my sister this, knowing there is not an answer that would satisfy the void I carry with me each day. I wonder which are the stories to tell and which are the ones to keep safely tucked away.  Sometimes the wondering is so powerful and unanswerable that I run to a thing of comfort.  I take photos, read for distraction, stitch, or talk with comfortable friends.  Recently, in a time of spinning around questions I took these photos.
I am leaving them bigger than I usually do.  Let me know if that works for you, as a reader.  And as usual click on image to enlarge.

Passion Fruit flower...looks like a helicopter!

Lavender at my place

 

I am not sure what this is...but, oh so fuzzy!

Beauty is a great escape.  

So is fiddling around and experimenting with art.

Here is today's little story:
So, I took these photos today of an interesting flower I had never seen before.  I brought home a piece and a pod too.  Then I lay it down between a shred of white silk (brought home from a felting workshop - never felted!), previously dyed with something I no longer remember, but currently resembling my mothers old nylons!  Then I smashed it with a hammer!!!  The result was not pleasing to the eye, just sort of blah.  I didn't even enjoy the process all that much as I felt like a murderer of that poor flower!  Maybe this is an activity to do when angry!  LOL  Maybe I need to read up on this!  Is there a special technique to flower smashing?   I threw it in the yellow rose dye pot that was sitting next to me.  Take that you experiment, you!  Anyway, next I smashed a couple of pansies.  The result was a little better.  There was a little pansy shape, that I will show you if I ever get those photos to upload!  I hung it on the rock rose and then my guy came out and did the watering.  He did ask me if I cared if he watered it.  Nah.  Just fooling around and it didn't look fantastic anyway.  So now it hangs there, clinging to the rock rose, lightly dyed - mostly sheer, naked in the night.  Oh well, easy come, easy go.  Ha!

Odd new flower & pods

Look at all of those pods!  I haven't opened mine yet.  If you know what this is, let me know!

 This is a bouquet I can recognize!

Now I think I will post this 'as is' because the last few photos are not behaving and I am tired of trying.  This is a good lesson for me as I am hoping to relax and fall into a unique rhythm & style in this blogging world.  But for tonight I just want to post pretty flowers!  (((SMILE)))

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2011