T. S. Eliot
Humour is also a way of saying something serious.
Monthly Archives: March 2014
The fifth Storydame Methuselism Award
While the tulips blooming (1/3 were up!) at Garvan Woodland Gardens yesterday were gorgeous, the real flower of the day was the 89-year-0ld driver of our golf cart!
Tulips, Garvan Woodland Gardens. ©D.L. Ewbank
She is, in her words, a bit “naughty, but not mean.” I found her wit freshly entertaining. Plus as our tulip tour ended she insisted on driving us as close to the Anthony Chapel as possible early enough for us to get prime seats for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra’s The Four Seasons, Vivaldi & Piazzolla.
The fifth Storydame Methuselism Award goes to the Gardens for the wise choice of using fabulously witty 50+++ folks as tour guides!
If you know artist and writer Jessica Hagy, it is probably through her online blog cartoon, Indexed. Hagy bills herself as “visual storytelling with a twist, a shout & sometimes a snort.” I stumbled across Hagy unexpectedly at my local Barnes & Noble (surprise, surprise). Step 7 seems just the thing for the person seeking to live a new story. “Give it a shot” Hagy suggests recommending the “new idea,” “the strange,” and leaving “your comfort zone.” But that’s just one solid suggestion in learning, as the back cover says, “how to live at the intersection of wonder, awe, and curiosity.”
Not sold yet? Experience the book in a nutshell and you’ll want to join me!
Shadowlands
My mother and I went to Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Arkansas, last Thursday. Rumor had it that the daffodils were at their peak.
It was late in the day, as we boarded the volunteer-driven golf cart for a ride through the garden. “Good day to come,” according to our driver.
Daffodils, Garvan Woodland Gardens, Hot Springs, Arkansas, March 13, 2014.
If the predicted cold and rain came over the weekend, the yellow and white flowers would be goners and the tulips were two and a half weeks away. As we drove through the garden, I was as impressed by the long shadows cast long across the garden as the yellow blooms.
The old idiom “late in the day” often means too far advanced or too late to be useful or too late for actions or decisions. But late in this day meant a new kind of richness for the garden.
Some days there is splendor in the shadowlands.