An Irish Mermaid Speaks, Belatedly

 

My mermaid and I are late with this St. Patrick's Day greeting but you know how changeable mermaids are, especially an Irish merrow who I pretend is a Middle Irish murdúchann. 

Yes, she should be green but then, merrows are shape shifters so why not red?

I thought of my mermaid who sits by a beautiful shamrock plant when I read what my favorite philosopher, Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie, has to say about them:

"One should always listen to mermaids," said Isabel. "They address one so infrequently that anything they have to say must be important."

 

 

Even children know that a mermaid can love a human being so I'm sure that the hearts of sea-nymphs all over the world have ached for the sadness and fear in humans this past year. 

Although we are feeling more hopeful this March and are beginning to see vaccination numbers growing for this terrible illness that has plagued us, some have experienced personal loss and nearly everyone has seen their life changed in ways they never would have thought possible.

 

 

RH and I have both had our vaccinations and most of our immediate family have had their first one, something for which I give thanks every day. And yet, there are still 2 a.m. moments when a feeling of panic envelops me and I start praying with an agitated spirit.

I try to remember this quote from one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Goudge. 

And then I say to myself that we should believe in that which we felt when we were strong and happy rather than in that which we feel when we are sick and sad. Do you not think, Judith, that one is more truly oneself in times of joy than in times of sorrow?

This is from Goudge's 1938 novel The Middle Window and I hope there is wisdom in that advice. I try not to trust these middle of the night feelings but rather remember what I know to be true. I am more myself in "times of joy than in times of sorrow." 

There have been times lately when I feel like Shirley MacLaine's character Ouiser in Steel Magnolias--"I'm not as nice as I used to be." Maybe that's true but I prefer to believe it's not. I prefer to blame it on a year of pandemic, a year of missing family, a year of not being able to go thrifting or antiquing, a year of no birthday parties, a year of no hugs...and the list could go on but does not include family members on the list of those who have died from COVID-19. So what on earth do I have to complain about? 

I think it's in those self-indulgent grumpy moments that my mermaid wants me to remember times of joy and strength and not be drug down in an undertow of fear.

She wants me to remember that Spring is nearly officially here and new growth is outside my windows.

I'm excited about that! Never before have I been so glad to see March on my Karen Adams calendar.

 

 

Don't you love that handbag? Mermaids may not need handbags but I would love one just like this. 

I'll say slán for now, dear family and friends, but remember one thing from this belated St. Patrick's Day post...

Listen to the mermaids! 

One last little known fact, Mermaids love to dance. You gotta love that!  

 

 

 

My Canna and Povel Wallander

[I'm sneaking one more summer garden post in before the calendar says Autumn is here tomorrow.] 

What possible link could my canna have with Povel Wallander?

Are there any Wallander fans out there? I watched it years ago and am now enjoying it all over again on Netflix.

Povel is the father of Kurt Wallander, played by Sir Kenneth Branagh, once married to Emma Thompson who he left for...wait, this is not a gossip blog so I'll get back to Povel and my canna.

Did you recognize David Warner, above, as Bob Cratchit in my favorite version of A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott as Scrooge? 

What is your favorite version? We'll be watching it soon, won't we?

David Warner has that marvelous craggy face that I'm sure any Star Trek fans will recognize--I had to throw that in for my Trekkie sons. 

And in the Swedish drama Wallander, he plays an important artist in declining health who is not on very good terms with his policeman son.

And every single picture Povel paints is the same scene of the rocky wooded coastline of Sweden where he lives.

Every single painting.

And now we come to my canna, the canna musifolia bulb (or is it called a rhizome?) that I ordered from 
Horn Canna Farm, a family farm in Carnegie, OK. 

RH planted it for me in a favorite heavy old concrete pot from the old house that had lost its bottom. It is beautifully aged, much as Povel's face is, and is sunk into the ground in the butterfly garden.

I've taken hundreds of pictures of this canna because I wanted it so badly. RH is prejudiced against cannas. He won't admit that but I know he is. Many people are, maybe remembering them planted in the middle of old tractor tires out in a farm yard. To me they always said, This is a farmhouse and so there must be cannas.

While a baby, my canna had to be protected from BreeBree jumping into it in her obsessive desire to catch a chipmunk, but it grew...

And grew until RH began to be fond of it too.

Finally it flowered...

Okay, the flowers aren't what sell cannas but the hummingbirds do love them.

We took pictures of it from every angle...

It put on more and more stalks...

Soon RH got used to me yelling to grab the camera and go get pictures of my canna, the light is just right.

I mean, is this plant not gorgeous with the sun shining through its bronze leaves?

This brown-eyed Susan has been a beautiful companion on one side, even though mostly finished blooming by now, the seeds drawing goldfinches.

And this Autumn Joy sedum has been a nice contrast on the other side. It's beginning to pink up for Autumn. [The plant is much more rosy now as I wrote this post a week ago.]The deer keep our other three Autumn Joy plants nibbled to the ground in our front garden but they can't get to this one.

I'm tagging my other canna lover...

                    Carla from The River 

before I close with a quote about cannas from a beloved book by Richardson Wright that stays on my bed table, The Gardener's Bed-Book.

Give a dog a bad name, and he may eventually retrieve his reputation, but let a flower suffer the sneers of the gardening cognoscenti, and all the fine hybrids of it that some faithful soul may create will flower to little advantage. Cannas are a case in point. Mention them, and across the mind flashes unlovely memories of dreary park, prison and hospital flower beds. For years the Canna was an institutional flower, and that's enough to damn any plant. Yet some very beautiful hybrids have been created and at the sight of them we waxed ecstatic over their subtle pinks and yellows. They have ceased being institutional.

Richardson Wright

The Gardener's Bed-Book

1929

 What about you? How do you feel about cannas? Or if not cannas, is there a plant that you just would not have in your garden?

if you've never loved cannas planted in the ground, have you ever thought about putting them in pots?

I keep imagining how magnificent two of these would be in large urns on either side of a path leading somewhere. What do you think?

And let me know if you want to see more pictures of my gorgeous canna that adds a vertical feature to our garden. 

Just like Povel Wallander, I have a million of them.

Hey, sweet readers, thank you so much for visiting me here at the Window! And thank you so much for your thoughtful and kind comments on my previous post about our darling granddaughters. 

You are the best!

"And what would life be like

if we paid one another no compliments?"

wonders Isabel in

The Careful Use of Compliments

by Alexander McCall Smith

Civil Society

Recently when I visited a blog friend and read her latest post, a non-controversial post, I was appalled to read a comment someone left her. My jaw dropped open as she left line after line about what she did not like about the blog.

Really?

In what way was this necessary?

I wished that I could magically have the commenter spend some time with Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie. 

But it was so easy, thought Isabel. It was so easy dealing with people who were well-mannered...They knew how to exchange those courtesies which made life go smoothly, which was what manners were all about.....

Good manners depended on paying moral attention to others; it required one to treat them with complete moral seriousness, to understand their feelings and their needs. Some people, the selfish, had no inclination to do this, and it always showed. They were impatient with those they thought did not count...manners were the basic building block of civil society.

                                                           Alexander McCall Smith
                                                           The Lost Art of Gratitude

If you've never read the very pleasant McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie novels set in modern day Edinburgh, you're in for a treat. 

Isabel's very handsome boyfriend Jamie, many years her junior, becomes her husband by the time you get to later books in the series.

And that is sometimes the reward for a well-mannered brilliant lady such as Isabel!

Go, Isabel!

What's a post without a picture, so here is what I think Isabel might look like if you updated the woman in this portrait by Holman Hunt for today's woman...

[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/382313455848394115/]

Jamie--her Jamie--said this about Isabel in The Lost Art of Gratitude:

"Holman Hunt might have painted you."

Doesn't she look kind? Well-mannered?

The Simple Things of Life - # 2

The Simple Things of Life Are the Best…

Like an Old Beloved Book.

Did you ever read Lad a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune?

Or see the old movie Lassie Come Home?

And bawl through them?

Do you love a simple, sweet, romantic story?

Do you know and love Gladys Taber?

Then this is the book for you. 

A dozen short stories by the beloved

Connecticut countrywoman,

Gladys Taber of Stillmeadow fame.

The perfect book to keep by your bed

and savor one story at a time.

Maybe shed a tear or two, happy ones.

Great literature?

There are times I run from it.

Stories of dysfunctional families?

No thanks, not anymore and 

not found in this book, glory be!

If you sometimes reach for a book to escape

"life is real, life is earnest"

then try this one instead of another depressing bestseller.

Choose to escape into a gentler time.

"But he'll never be recognized, because Scots

literature these days is all about complaining and

moaning and being injured in one's soul."

Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club

[Spode Morning Glory plate and cup shown on table and a nursery rhyme plate by Spode on wall. The old stained glass window of pink tulips was a gift from son Zack.]