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I wanted to pass this on.
Honestly? I've never been one to be active in alumni associations - but yesterday I contacted the Virginia Tech local chapter, and I think I'll join. I just feel like the university will need its entire expanded community to make it through this. I need to dig up a VT t-shirt. I think I've got one somewhere.
On Monday evening, I emailed my Master's degree advisor, telling him how sorry I was about the events of earlier that day. Early Tuesday morning (he always got into his office before me!) I received a thoughtful email from him, where he said that he hoped that they would be able to find 'some glimmer of grace' in all that had happened.
I can't help but think that they found more than a glimmer of grace yesterday. With the Convocation and the Candlelight Vigil - it was pretty powerful stuff for this former hokie.
The Victims from the NYTimes.
Friends Pay Tribute to Those Who Were Lost from NPR.
Wednesday (18 April), Marion Square, Candlelight Vigil sponsored by the Charleston Chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni ASsociation.
I spent six years in Blacksburg. First for my undergraduate degree - where my love of plants took me to a required soil science class (and where I fell in love with education for the first time). I stayed on for a Master's degree.
Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech campus were always peaceful places for me - a place where I always felt safe, an isolated University in a quiet part of southwest Virginia. The campus was spacious, with alot of trees - and the countryside still is one of my favorites - I spent hours and hours on the New River and hiking the surrounding mountains. A few years ago, I was invited back to my former Department, Crop & Soil Environmental Sciences, to give the departmental seminar - and I spent a few days reminiscing about a place and a time that I look on with only warm memories.
I followed the events of the day on CNN while in my office today. When I got home this evening, the first phone call I received was from my Virginia Tech roommate, Jill. The second call was from a guy that I dated during my Master's degree years, Bob. We were all very sad about this trajedy - it would have been a horrible event no matter where it happened, but to happen at a place that we felt so strongly about, and knew so well, was difficult.
It was difficult for myself and my friends, so I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for students and staff and faculty and visitors on the Virginia Tech campus this morning. I can't even pretend to imagine what it was like for students taking a test in that classroom, or others on the campus, or for their families that have waited for phone calls throughout the afternoon and evening. Placing today's events onto the images of Virginia Tech that I have in my mind has been impossible for me.
We have an open society. We walk freely into churches and ball parks and shopping malls...and college classrooms. I've thought about alot of things today - about how Virginia has very liberal guns laws, and about how they don't score so well with respect to them. I've thought about how I like the open-ness of our society, and how open our colleges and universities are. I like living in an open society. I wonder if days-like-today are the price that we have to pay for that, and if so, then we're all part of what has happened. We watch so much violence - a war that has become a 'reality TV' show that is much too real, violence on TV that we've become immuned to - I just can't help but think that all of the violence that surrounds our children (and all of us really) is reflected in today's events. It happened today, on the Virginia Tech campus, but it could happen just about anywhere.
There are still many unanswered questions. But for tonight, I'm just sad for a peaceful place. My thoughts are with the people there.
It's 15 April, and time for Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day...and with a day reminescent of a visit from a tropical storm - low pressures, wind, ocassional downpours - the garden barely stood still long enough to be photographed so eventually I just gave up. The winds are still blowing and the temperatures have dropped at least 15 degrees (Or more? We might get down into the mid-40s tonight) and I have to keep reminding myself that it is a mid-April afternoon. I know, I know - many of you are getting snow (like my brother in Vermont) - so I won't complain too much.
So...what's in bloom in the garden? Azaleas are lingering, as are a few camellias - the 'Admiral Semmes' native azaleas is still in bloom, as are the violets and this and Nicotiana and the brocolli that has bolted and red clover and roses (lots of roses - Mutabilis and Blossomtime (above) and Marie Pavie and Duchess de Brabant and Cl. Cecile Brunner and others) - but the thing in my yard that has been blooming the most profusely over the past few weeks, and which over the past 12 or so hours has literally poured down onto the garden (and everywhere else) is the inconspicuous flowers of the live oak, Quercus virginiana. They are described as inconspicuous but today, after the winds that have been blowing, they aren't even remotely inconspicuous - they have covered my car, the deck, and the drive...my whole yard is literally covered in live oak flowers, and as you might imagine, the lowcountry (including the Gladii) isn't too happy about it. Otherwise, there's a few other plants in bloom that stayed still long enough to photograph.
In a recent post over at A Lake County Point of View, the County Clerk wrote:
My Delphinium x elatum seedlings are up and ready. Depsite the snow, I'm thinking Delphinium thoughts. It's just a matter of time and the dolphin search can begin again.
Well... the "new latin" moniker for Larkspur - "Delphinium" - comes to us almost unchanged from the Greek.
"from Greek delphinion, larkspur, probably diminutive of delphis, delphin-, dolphin (from the shape of the nectary)."[i]
The dolphin thing supposedly describes the shape of the bud… or so I'm told. I don't see it, and I've been looking for years. But I am assured that there is a dolphin there somewhere!
Now, when I was thinking about this - I was trying to remember what my northern perennial delphiniums looked like in my Michigan garden. Thinking back, I think I made a lame (although fairly well thought out) comment on the County Clerk's site that perhaps it was another member of the dolphin family (I believe I said the pilot whale - because the truncated face of the whale might, if you squint your eyes and use all of your imagination might look like a swollen flower bud of the Delphinium).
But today, as I was attempting to photograph flowers in my garden (for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day) while there were gale-force winds (no, I was not very successful - and if the winds die don't down, I'm tempted to try the approach used by Ellis Hollow - gorgeous!), well I THINK I FOUND THE DOLPHINS! I was photographing my annual larkspur that reseed each year (they are just beginning to bloom) - and, well, what do you think?
So, what do you know? The Airstream has made it into MoMa (and the NYTimes)! A 1963 Bambi has been acquired by the museum - and is on exhibit ('On the Road: Airstream Bambi Travel Trailer') in the museum lobby from 7 March - 12 November 2007. The NYTimes article was pretty funny, especially this quote from Wally Byam:
Byam saw the Airstream as a neutral vessel wherever it sailed. “We never get involved in the internal politics of any country,” he said. “We concentrate on learning as much as we can, making friends on an unofficial, nonpolitical people-to-people basis.”
Well, I am quite relieved that the Airstream is a 'neutral' vessel wherever it sails - but then, I never really thought of it as having a political orientation. I also like referring to it as a 'sailing vessel' - and on this day of gale force winds and pressures similar to those of a tropical system - sailing away on an Airstream seems a bit dangerous and adventuresome. As for my Airstream, it is still at Sonny's Camp-N-Travel in North Charleston (which has been recently purchased by Freedom Roads LLC and will be renamed 'Camping World RV Sales'). I'm guessing that it is sitting somewhere at Sonny's, with it's guts torn apart - and I guess I'd better check in and see how the re-plumbing is coming along...
These are images I captured a few weeks ago now, in my mother's Virginia garden during my last visit. I gave her a number of hellebores several years ago - and now they have grown, and they bloom like crazy - unlike my pathetic specimen in my southern (and just barely out-of-zone) garden. I keep mine, but it hasn't bloom in four years (yet each year I am hopeful - which, I suppose, is the expected optimism of a gardener). As for the sweet flowers that begin pink and then open blue - I haven't a clue. Does anyone know what they are? They are low-growing, with a beautiful fresh green leaf - and are covered in these sweet flowers. I feel that I should know them, but can't think of what they are (I know, I know - I could look them up but it is Friday, I've had a glass of wine, and the day was long).
This weekend is one of planting - although strong storms are expected at some point tomorrow afternoon. I've got seeds leftover from last year - zinnia 'Red Spider', Didiscus (blue lace flower), chinese foxglove, cosmos 'white sonata', Knautia 'watercolors', feverfew 'Rotary', phlox 'phlox of sheep', garden heliotrope - an assortment of annuals (which I usually avoid) and a few perennials - ones that I selected last winter (along with others that I did manage to plant). This year I'm planting for two though, as I'm hoping to keep my mother in flowers during her Virginia summer - which should be an easy task. It is as easy to plant for two, as it is for one. It is something that I can do for my mother, something that will make her smile.
Today was my Good Friday (with no offense towards the better known one). A visiting scientist spent the day with my research group - and she was delightful: bright, funny, comfortable - and my group enjoyed the exchange and were happy, and I enjoyed the discussions, and left my colleague at the airport feeling enthused, optimistic - happy: so much of science is tedious and isolating work (writing, reviewing, editing, thinking) - but today was interactive and filled with ideas and it has left me tired but happy. Yes, another week is over - a busy one - and in the middle of this week Katherine shared a poem with us at Wednesday's laboratory meeting - a wonderful poem and poet (as always) and it made me think this evening of the tulip that captured my attention all week - with it's petals slowly falling, then dropping - but with each progression newly defining what beauty is all about.
Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski
I was supposed to be running around this evening, rushing to the airport to pick up a visiting scientist (and collaborator) - rushing back downtown to let her check into the hotel - then rushing to dinner (a potentially festive dinner however, with my entire lab present). But the weather in DC delayed her flight, she won't arrive until late: so here I find myself, with an unexpected evening at home. A much needed evening void of expectation. So, I fall into my favorite routine...and roam the garden with the Ancient Wonder Beagle and an ocassional large dog.
Birds. The bluebirds are definitely nesting in the purple martin house. While I've been hoping for purple martins, I wouldn't dare evict a bluebird - so I will enjoy them (they tend to sit in the popcorn tree and watch me work in the garden). I'm also having to accept, with much sadness, that my painted buntings aren't returning this year. I would have seen them at the feeder already - first the solid green female, followed in a week or two by the male - and they're already in South Carolina. I had them for three years - three seasons when I saw them everyday, all day - so I'll just hope that one day in the future a pair will return and choose my garden for their nesting place.
Ancient Dogs. Having an ancient dog has made me understand, a bit at least, how ancient humans might feel. People don't rush up to pet an ancient dog. They keep a comfortable distance, as if being ancient is contagious - ancient in this case meaning that one is closer to death's door than the less-than-ancient. Ancient isn't all that pretty, and in living with the Ancient Wonder Beagle, I have become blind to the malignant tumor in her eye that makes her left eye look like a red scar (it doesn't hurt her at all, she doesn't mind it, and since she's blind anyway, it doesn't further impair her eyesight). She's blind, and I'm blind to her. But having her has made me try to be more aware of my own behavior around elderly people, and ancient dogs.
Cabbages (and other misc. plant thoughts). I'm not sure if my savoy cabbage is going to form heads this year. It wasn't consistently cool enough - and then we had a few really, really warm periods - and I think they just might boycott the whole forming a cabbage head thing. They're beautiful, and the leaves are still edible - but overall, it has been a rotten late winter/early spring for cruciferous vegetables. Oh well. Now it is time to plant seeds though - flower seeds - I've gotten so that I wait until early to mid-April to plant flower seeds, which means that I can keep them out on the deck, since I don't have a good place indoors for them. This weekend will be a seed-planting weekend - more hollyhocks and moonvine and hyacinth bean and..all of the wonderful seeds that I got last year from Select Seeds and didn't plant.
Something for my Mom. I've been at a bit of a loss with respect to my Mother and the new uninvited guest in her home, lung cancer. I visit and call and send cards and do what I can, mostly bumbling attempts at being good at something that I can't imagine ever being good at. But one thing that I've decided to do for our family is to take the slide collection, that has been stored in the back of a basement closet for years, and scan them all in as digital images. I'm excited about doing this, although I know that it will also be a sad journey - but my goal is to get several 'books' together - the Austria years (when my brother was born), vacations when we were young - the scanner should be delivered tomorrow. There are slides in the collection that I don't ever remember seeing - like this one of my mother standing by a red cedar, her and my father's Christmas tree one year long ago (when my mother was in her mid-20s). I've always loved red cedars - they are the trees of fence rows in my home town in Virginia - and I wonder tonight how many red cedars I'll discover as I scan images of my family's past.
It's good to have an unexpected evening, an evening with no expectations.
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