Equality, do you want it? You're not getting it for Christmas

[sovay]

Despite feeling especially weird and fractured and furious with a country and now it seems a state that would like me to die conveniently off (bureaucracy, finances, doctors, catch-22's), I managed to get out of the house this evening with spatch and a camera.



The heart of a clematis looks like a sea anemone. Or an alien.



Rose season gives way to daylily season.



A couple of roses are still giving their best Georgia O'Keeffe.



I could not manage to take a picture of these hydrangeas that made them look like as much of a Tiffany pattern as they did in three dimensions.



Remember last year when I discovered that we live across the street from slaveholding ground? There's the monument to prove it. History in this country is like tripping over a branch and finding it's bone. Six hundred acres of land and, to begin with, three human beings.



We walked on. We applauded this unknown plant at the end of Governor Winthrop Road.



The foxgloves were blueshifting.



The texture of the petals as much as their color fascinated me.

I am beginning to feel that my life has become a perpetual process of discovering damage I knew I had taken but didn't understand the depth of and I have to say it's a lot more wearying than any process of discovery has a right to be. My brain just stalled out this evening trying to assimilate the idea of people having loyalty to me. That's terrible. I'm not even sure it's Tiny Wittgenstein. It's just stupid.

Comments

[yhlee]

*support support*

your photos are beautiful. i'm sorry things continue hard.

*hugs if wanted*

[sovay]

your photos are beautiful. i'm sorry things continue hard.

Thank you. I like taking the photos.

*hugs if wanted*

They totally help.

*hugs*

[thawrecka]

Beautiful flowers and leaves!

[sovay]

Beautiful flowers and leaves!

Thank you! I'd thought we would be out of flowers by now, but I am happy to be discovering not.

[gwynnega]

Those photos are beautiful.

:hugs:: for the difficult part.

[sovay]

Those photos are beautiful.

Thank you. I have a lot of good subjects.

:hugs:: for the difficult part.

*hugs*

[genarti]

Your photos are gorgeously luminous. They look hyperrealist, almost, as if they've captured that glow that flowers can have, where half the beauty is how they actually look and the other half is your own emotional reaction to suddenly noticing that splash of bright living color; I'm not sure how you've captured that half in a photo, but you have. I love them.

[sovay]

I'm not sure how you've captured that half in a photo, but you have. I love them.

That's a wonderful compliment. Thank you. The pictures are the digital equivalent of unretouched: the camera may be older than Bertie Owen. I point it at things.

[asakiyume]

--capturing the emotional reaction, yes.

[sara]

I wonder if you wrote "and three people" on the granite in grease pencil if it would stick.

[sovay]

I wonder if you wrote "and three people" on the granite in grease pencil if it would stick.

It might be worth the experiment no matter what.

[sara]

I think an oil based medium would be most lasting.

[selkie]

Your poor brain is going to have a just horrible time parsing anything of benefit to your well-being right now, because we’ve had more than a hundred days of continual, slow-smoldering hell and that same brain has been tightly focused on keeping you and your family alive and no human brain is adaptive and resilient forever without some resources and respite, of which there have been exactly dick, so don’t worry about trying to remember that I and others would bring the world down for you and bite your detractors in the throat until they inconveniently bleed; it’s a lot for a brain right now to have to store. It is still true.

[sovay]

so don’t worry about trying to remember that I and others would bring the world down for you and bite your detractors in the throat until they inconveniently bleed; it’s a lot for a brain right now to have to store. It is still true.

Thank you for remembering for me.

Love.

[asakiyume]

That's what I'm talking about. I don't know a heck of a lot about you, Selkie, but this is one thing I do know.

[sovay]

I don't know a heck of a lot about you, Selkie, but this is one thing I do know.

Well, for starters, her fiction is brilliant. (Even though her website doesn't have a bibliography. Even my website has a bibliography! People who like your stuff like to know where to find it!)

[asakiyume]

OMG yes! I *adored* the concept of The Covert Captain. I need to get to READING these.

[asakiyume]

In fact, just purchased. I'll be much more likely to read it if it's to hand ;-)

[sovay]

In fact, just purchased. I'll be much more likely to read it if it's to hand

Hooray! Enjoy! I am deeply fond of this novel.

[selkie]

You could have said I was steadfast, loyal, true-blue, a real pal, delicately violent, but you went for selling my fiction? 😜
I love you.

[sovay]

You could have said I was steadfast, loyal, true-blue, a real pal, delicately violent,

That looked like it was going without saying!

but you went for selling my fiction?

Love you.

(Still mean it about the bibliography.)

[selkie]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy the book.

And I am not a good person, but I try to be a kind person and I will always level a glacier or two for someone I love. Otherwise I am a lazy, nonprofit-do-gooder, mildly socialist sort who invites people over to do their laundry and refrains from picking fights with Republicans. Mostly.

[sovay]

And I am not a good person

This part continues to be inaccurate, but otherwise the description is on brand.

[thisbluespirit]

♥

The pictures are beautiful, as ever - especially that clematis!

[sovay]

The pictures are beautiful, as ever - especially that clematis!

Thank you!

*hugs*

[asakiyume]

Let me promise you, in place of an omniscient narrator, that the people I've witnessed in your life are deeply, permanently loyal to you. I don't know a whole lot about any of them, but that's one thing I do know. It's a reason I have for feeling a sense of commonality with them.

Thank you for this bouquet of brilliant colors and textures. I want to touch the lilies in the last one. Your blue-shifting foxgloves are delphinium. The あじさい/hydrangea are THE flower of this season in Japan, and seeing those beauties makes me very nostalgic. And I want to go to the world that clematis is from. Oh wait, I live here. ... Anyway, it's a very healing bouquet for me--I hope that true, real healing comes soon for you.

[sovay]

Let me promise you, in place of an omniscient narrator, that the people I've witnessed in your life are deeply, permanently loyal to you.

I believe you. I am just emotionally having a lot of difficulty with the concept.

Thank you for this bouquet of brilliant colors and textures.

You're welcome. I'm just happy that so many flowers are blooming into the summer. I never paid much attention to their seasons before, but now I'm looking forward to seeing what else turns up.

The あじさい/hydrangea are THE flower of this season in Japan, and seeing those beauties makes me very nostalgic.

I didn't know that! I am especially glad I posted them, then. (What is the transliteration of the name? I do not read Japanese.)

Anyway, it's a very healing bouquet for me--I hope that true, real healing comes soon for you.

Thank you.

[asakiyume]

That's transliterated as "ajisai"--they are so, so this-weather

[sovay]

That's transliterated as "ajisai"--they are so, so this-weather

Thank you!

Which micro-season are we in now?

[asakiyume]

I had to check: it turns out it's "crow-dipper sprouts"

"Crow-dipper" turns out to be an English-language common name for Pinellia ternata, which is native to China, Korea, and Japan but invasive here. It's apparently used in Chinese medicine. The name in Japanese, 半夏 (hange) is very seasonally evocative: half-summer.

[sovay]

The name in Japanese, 半夏 (hange) is very seasonally evocative: half-summer.

Nice!

If it's invasive, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[troisoiseaux]

History in this country is like tripping over a branch and finding it's bone.

Yeah. :(

Thank you for sharing these lovely pictures - the last one is so cool! and YAY for the brave little plant growing up through the concrete! do you have any idea if the space around it was pre-existent, or it just started growing on its own and someone cleared the circle of concrete around it to give it room to grow? - and I'm sorry things suck right now.

[sovay]

Yeah.

I may have lifted that image from the Ashkenazi folktale sometimes retold under the title of "The Bride's Finger" or "The Finger," but I still think it's true.

Thank you for sharing these lovely pictures - the last one is so cool!

You're welcome! I like how they came out.

and YAY for the brave little plant growing up through the concrete! do you have any idea if the space around it was pre-existent, or it just started growing on its own and someone cleared the circle of concrete around it to give it room to grow?

It looks to me like the city took out an old telephone pole and the plant popped right into the space it left. I have no idea what it is. But I admire it.

- and I'm sorry things suck right now.

Thank you.

[oracne]

Thank you for the flower pictures.

[sovay]

Thank you for the flower pictures.

You're welcome. I like having so many flowers to take pictures of.

[a_reasonable_man]

Thank you for sharing the photos. The flowers are beautiful.

There's so much to be said about what people choose to memorialize in monuments. I'm not aware of the history of slavery in New England having any memorials, while the spurious history of the Viking origins of New England has several.

And *hugs*.

[lauradi7dw]

There is a real sense in which the Royall House and Slave Quarters museum is a memorial to the people enslaved there and in particular, in terms of "tripping over a branch and finding it's bone," there is a stumble stone on the sidewalk in front of the house, in memory of one of the enslaved residents. (based on the Holocaust ones in Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein)
Phillis Wheatley is one of those in the Boston Women's Memorial.
https://www.boston.gov/departments/womens-advancement/boston-womens-memorial
I had remembered seeing a statue of Elizabeth Freeman (MumBet), but it's not in New England, even though she was in Massachusetts when she became famous for her lawsuit to become free. The statue is in DC, at the NMAAH. And there's the about to be removed statue at Park Square of Lincoln standing over chained people, which is supposed to commemorate Emancipation.
Of course all the Viking things are white-supremacy based, although it might not have been articulated exactly that way in the past.

[sovay]

There is a real sense in which the Royall House and Slave Quarters museum is a memorial to the people enslaved there and in particular, in terms of "tripping over a branch and finding it's bone," there is a stumble stone on the sidewalk in front of the house, in memory of one of the enslaved residents.

That is good to know. I am familiar with the Stolpersteine, but didn't realize there were any in the U.S.

Of course all the Viking things are white-supremacy based, although it might not have been articulated exactly that way in the past.

I wouldn't call a Nordic claim superseding a Mediterranean claim to the discovery of America exactly subtle.

[lauradi7dw]

*its*

I admire the purpose of the Stoplersteine, but knowing that they might actually make someone stumble and fall, I think there must be some better way.

[sovay]

Thank you for sharing the photos. The flowers are beautiful.

You're welcome! And thank you. It feels extremely conventional to be noticing flowers in a time of mass mortality, but they seem to help.

I'm not aware of the history of slavery in New England having any memorials, while the spurious history of the Viking origins of New England has several.

That came up in a couple of my friend groups when the Columbus statue was first decapitated and then removed. The reason for the Leif Erikson statue on Comm Ave is another thing that people never seem to think about, which is fair, because it's nuts.

[choco_frosh]

https://www.deviantart.com/ursulav/art/Honey-Badger-Love-433587358

[sovay]

A classic for a reason.

*hugs*

[phi]

*hugs*

[sovay]

*hugs*

*hugs*

[sorcyress]

I am beginning to feel that my life has become a perpetual process of discovering damage I knew I had taken but didn't understand the depth of and I have to say it's a lot more wearying than any process of discovery has a right to be.

I have not gotten a chance yet to read the rest of the entry, but *wow* did this line sing to me.

[sovay]

I have not gotten a chance yet to read the rest of the entry, but *wow* did this line sing to me.

Solidarity, and if useful, *hugs*