Because Nature.

Southern Magnolia

Lemon-scented goodness!!

Native Magnolia

Hello My Loves,

Sweet Bay Magnolia

It's getting more like Springtime every day, here in beautiful, downtown Midland, and there are so many plants blooming in the backyard. We have a Southern Magnolia, with the dark glossy leaves that are fuzzy underneath and the big saucers of lemon-scented goodness. We have some sort of native little booger that has glossy, light green leaves and isn't blooming yet, and then we have the Sweet Bay--aka, swamp magnolias--diminutive teacup flowers with the most glorious perfume of lemon and jasmine. And then there's the actual Jasmine, which releases her scent at dusk. It is a scent of sweetness and melancholy and allure, that you wouldn't expect from a blossom so white and demure. There is a reason that Southern writers are so often reflective and dreamy. They are lost in a reverie of flowers. Because along with all of these fragrant beauties, this Spring, we've seen lemon lilies blooming and the purple and gold iris and both white and coral azaleas and even orange squash blossoms out of the compost heap. The morning glories are starting to wind their way around our moss-covered, warped wood fence, next to the tiny pink-yellow blossoms of the lantana, that self-seeded from our neighbors' yard. It's all rounded out by the pink abelia and lorapetalum flowers on the shrubs that line the yard.

Abelia

I don't know if you can tell, but I love flowers. I mean, LOVE, flowers. I haven't even gotten to the sunshine-colored daylilies by the mailbox or the coconutty, perfumed perfection of the creeping gardenia by the front door. When I was four, I named my first dog--a shaggy gray Old English Sheepdog/Black Lab--Tulip. Since then, we've had Daffodil, a golden mix, and Pepper Daisy, a shepherd/corgi mix, and an orange kitty cat named Marigold. In fact, we nicknamed our daughter after a flower.

But why? Why am I so enamored with flowers? As a child, I loved the beautiful Victorian flower fairies and I imagined meeting them under toadstools and in the kind of scary, spider -filled playhouse in our backyard in Silver Spring. Even the patio, with it's ant-filled stump and hollyhocks and glads shooting up along the fence, and the brick patio, shaded by a giant, old fir tree,where I remember discussing the merits of ketchup or mustard or mayo on a freshly grilled hamburger, was the perfect place to find a stray fairy.

Jasmine

Then we moved to the farm, and I could walk along the creek and find the stinky-when-crushed skunk cabbage and a wayward lilypad and moss-covered rocks under a giant-leafed sycamore, like the one where we scattered some of my Dad's ashes. There were ferns with their ancient, spotty spores on the underside of their chartreuse leaves and pitcher plants waiting for junebugs and mosquitoes. I could walk in the woods in Winter and see the beautiful silver-barked birches and the craggy oaks and the leaves of the trees and wonder, truly, if a tree fell in the forest, did anybody hear? I did. Once. It was a small tree and it was LOUD. I can't imagine if a giant, old oak fell in the woods. It would have been deafening.

In the Winter,  when it snowed, the forest where I lived was silent, aside from my own footsteps. The birds had fled South, where I now live, and the animals were tucked up in trees and underground, waiting to hear the first,  grating croaks of the bullfrogs that lived at the edge of the very murky pond by the amphitheater where so many calico print- and flower-bedecked couples were married. Flowers are in my blood. I love to be in Nature. I am not a fan of mosquitoes, of course, and I might have a bee phobia, but I love to be surrounded by leaves and green and quiet and heavenly-scented flowers. I love the lushness of Spring and the scarcity of Winter. God's glory is represented in every Season.

I worry that the future will bring destruction to the luxury of Nature. I wonder what would happen if we all took a day to revel in the wonder of nature, be it animal, vegetable or mineral? How can we encourage each other to feel more connected to the world we've been given? How can we feel compelled to protect her?

Look. Smell. Listen. Feel.

Love,
Corks