We live in a funny in-between space here in Ontario. If you look out the front of our house, you see a town and don't have far to drive before you reach a city. But if you look out the back windows, there is the countryside. Beautiful countryside. We sit right on the margin, and as I go about my daily business and drive here and there I am always weaving in and out of developed and undeveloped land. Its an interesting place to watch the seasons change. And as I've gotten older, I've been looking around outside more. I think I'll always be an indoor girl at heart, but I certainly do notice the beauty out there (one of the many gifts my mom and dad have passed on to me as they pointed out the beauty around them. See, I was listening mom, even when it seemed I wasn't). And how it changes with each season. And one thing that I've noticed at this time of year is the big fields of Queen Ann's Lace that bloom each summer. Wide swaths of tall stemmed white flowers bowing and bobbing in the wind. Along the side of the road, in every vacant lot and empty field and on the margins of construction sites. And as I drive by on my way to the grocery store or the library I always think "I should stop and take some pictures." But you know how it is. I have two little boys and just never enough time.
But last week, after a busy day and sligtly stressful afternoon on the parenting end of things, Hubs came home from work and in the 35 minutes I had between his arrival and dinner time, I decided to disappear with my camera and 'make some pictures' as they used to say when photography was a new medium. I took along a little model to keep things interesting.
You already know he loves to smell flowers...
...but I also had a bit of a job keeping him from 'tasting' them too. In the split second after I took the photo above he'd opened wide to pop that entire bud into his mouth. Don't worry, I was only inches away and managed to intervene before anything actually got ingested successfully. (He was quite miffed about that.)
I'm always amazed by what beautiful flowers these are, and how sort of alien and un-flower like they look at the same time. I guess its the textile lover in me, but they do have that regular geometric feel that lace doilies have, in that you can sort of see the repeat pattern in them. How I love a repeat pattern. And the subtle shift in colour of green to white from the stem to the bloom is so lovely.
Even though it was the end of the day, and the sun was not directly overhead, it was still quite a cloudless day, and very warm, so we took a moment to sit in the shade.
We brought a flower along for company though. I find taking pictures of kids so interesting, and photography in general is such a fascinating thing as I've never ascribed to the whole 'pictures tell the truth' theory that we tend to fall for in our culture. Always bear in mind that pictures are a carefully constructed selective 'truth' and moments are often created, not captured. My point is look at that long lashed cherub in the picture above, so demurely sniffing his flower. And then see how different he appears below.
So full of 'piss and vinegar' (as my dad would say) and hollering at the top of his lungs at a passing motorcycle. He was more interested in using that flower to flag it down and brandished it like a beacon. And while these are both 'accurate' pictures of him, (neither of them posed or photoshopped) they tell two very different stories. Just bear that in mind when you read blogs. I don't want you to think that my entire day was spent lolling about in a field of flowers taking pictures of a baby. Pictures only give you a tiny slice of a much larger story (and the rest of that story involves laundry and poop and crying. I just didn't take pictures of those slices. Because my hands were too dirty to pick up a camera.)
After our brief break in the shade we went back out the the flowers to get a few more shots (and a few more flowers) but dinnertime was fast approaching and there is no such thing as long photo shoot with an 18 month old anyhow. So we hopped back into the car, both of us happy for the chance to have been out in the world and enjoying nature and being creative, even if only for 15 or 20 minutes. We left an empty field behind us and headed back to a house full of busy-ness. And by 'empty' I mean full of flowers. And by 'busy' I mean there were big brothers and a Daddy and dinner to cajole into little mouths and faces and hands to be wiped and dishes to wash and baths to take and stories to read and hugs to get and give and then finally the silence of the end of the day. And after it all, a mangled flower in a jar on the table to remind us of that big green and white field and the few beautiful moments we shared there.
Oh, sigh, I love your last few sentences. Trying not to read them too quickly but can't help streaming through in a rush! Pictures are absolutely gorgeous too. Let's hear it for 15 minutes of time grabbed.
Posted by: sleeping duty | 08/02/2012 at 11:27 AM