Thursday, February 9, 2012

Thirteen (or Fewer) Ways of Looking at a Crocus

or Comparing Apples to Apples

The poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens, uses blackbirds as a kind of touchstone for different perspectives.  The birds are a recurring theme, sure, a point of departure, but also a way of testing moods and images against something constant.  When I was in grad school for music history, every year the composition students were each asked to write music for a stanza from the Thirteen Ways.  Their group concerts (called things like "Twelve Ways of Looking at Six Ways of Looking at a Blackbird") were always among my favorites—I loved seeing how such different perspectives, such powerful individuality, could spring from the same material.

Crocus chrysanthus 'Cream Beauty'

A friend of mine who teaches English starts his writing class every year by asking students to describe an apple.  Sometimes they get stuck:  how many ways can you say "roundish" and "red"?  Then he offers suggestions:  the role of apples in family traditions (Mom teaching me how to crimp a pie crust,  and telling me about dinners of apple dumplings during the Great Depression); in seasonal rites (apple picking on a crisp, New England autumn day, fresh-pressed cider from a roadside stand); in the garden (showers of apple blossom petals, their scent filling the air; espaliers stretched against a wall; underplantings of daffodils); in the ecosystem (the soothing drone of bees, the gnawings of codling moth larvae, the barely bitten apple discarded by squirrels); in legend (forbidden fruit, apples of gold, dwarfs and evil step-mothers); in the economy (the complex journey from orchard to table).

His point is that even something as simple as an apple isn't self-contained or shut off from the world.  It exists in a web of interactions.  Suddenly my friend's students don't know how to stop describing an apple.

C. chrysanthus 'Blue Pearl'

In some ways, gardens are full of endless variety and wonder.  In other ways, the same things tend to happen pretty much every year.  (Not that that isn't also a source of wonder.)  After my first year of blogging I found (and still find) myself stuck every so often—in a tiny garden, how much really changes from one spring to the next?  What remains to be said?  The bulbs come up, and I take photo after enthusiastic photo of the crocuses...which look remarkably similar to the photos upon photos of crocuses I took last year, which look an awful lot like the ones from the year before that. 

Because the crocuses haven't changed.  They just keep blooming in the same way (even if they are three weeks early) and in the same places as they always do.* 

So far, my primary way of looking at a crocus is a gleeful one:  "The crocuses are blooming!  The crocuses are blooming!"  It's a lot of fun, actually, but I wonder what would happen if I set myself the challenge of finding some new ways, too?  Probably not thirteen of them—that seems a little excessive—but more than one.  If your crocuses or some equivalent are up and running and you feel like taking part in the More than One but Fewer than Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Crocus (or Some Equivalent) Challenge, please do, and please let me know about it.  Don't consider it anything as formal as a meme.

It would just be nice to wonder how to stop describing a crocus.
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* This is not a complaint.

28 comments:

  1. To think about a crocus in a new way... I will have to consider that. But it is striking to me how new the very same way *feels*, each year. It's such a pure hopeful excitement, seeing that first bud plumping up - almost like it's never happened before. Although of course it has, and I seem to have forgotten. Happy first flowers to you! Seeing your spring is heartening to me.

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    1. Zoe, what a beautiful description. That gasp of surprise and delight at the first crocus never does seem to lose its magic. Maybe it's because winter never loses its own power in our lives, either. Experience and blogging are diverging a little for me here--I feel the same excitement as always but can't just dig up last year's crocus post and re-post it...

      The first signs of hope will start appearing out your way soon!

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  2. No early spring just a few stray snowdrops about to be buried in cold and snow this weekend...of course every year I see less and less crocus due to the voles...perhaps by the third of fourth week of Feb. I might see some blooms...of course you know why we are transfixed on the crocus...it means spring is here...it is why I lay on the cold ground watching the green foliage for any sign of a flower bud beginning...that is if the voles haven't devoured the foliage.

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    1. Donna, I've never had to cope with voles. For them to mess with your bulbs, and those wonderful first stirrings of life--well, that's just hitting below the belt. I hope they find other, more weedy food and leave your springtime alone.

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  3. Crocus reminds me of walking in Swiss forests for the first time. In spring, meeting flowers I had read about. And YELLOW violets. (Everyone knows violets are blue!)

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    1. "Walking in Swiss forests"--that's daydream material, Diana. Coming across those familiar-from-books flowers sounds like meeting a penpal (or blogging friend) face to face for the first time. (Yellow violets, though--that sounds a bit subversive.)

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  4. Lovely little crocuses! They do make you want to just shout out with glee "The crocus are blooming! The crocus are blooming!". Mine, unfortunately, are not blooming yet. But their foliage is up, so I will hopefully be shouting soon. I'll see if I can come up with a new way to express that feeling of glee. Good idea.

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    1. Holley, that's it exactly--the feeling of glee is so strong. It's so fresh every year, that it would be nice to honor it with a fresh expression, too.

      Climates are just bizarre. I'd have figured your crocuses would be over and done by now!

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  5. The fact that we continue to be excited every year by the same plant, in the same place at the same time (or almost) is a reason to celebrate. May we never become complacent at such simple things.

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    1. Karen, what a lovely perspective. Yes--that excitement is really precious.

      I hope I didn't come across as being jaded by crocuses. That's not the case at all! I'm just wondering how to translate that enjoyment into a fresh blog post year after year.

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  6. A profound post, Stacy. Your friend sounds like an inspiring teacher. I find myself using the " apple - green, round" type of thinking far too often, especially when blogging. I am now going to consider our snowdrops in a whole new light.
    BTW. You crocuses are beautiful and new to me....

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    1. Janet, my friend is the kind of teacher I would have loved to have (or to have been) myself.

      For some reason I just love the pale, whispery colors for the earliest crocuses.

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  7. Thanks Stacy, I find it much easier to write a post when I'm given a title. Working on it !

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    1. Any time you'd like me to offer a snappy title that trips easily off the tongue like that, you just let me know, b-a-g!

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    2. Here it is ! : http://experiments-with-plants.blogspot.com/2012/02/crocus-17-feb-2012.html

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  8. One thing I like about gardening is that the garden is always changing, and so I see things differently each day, each season, each year. And, like you, I am always full of glee when a crocus blooms.

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    1. Michelle, I always squeal aloud when I see the first crocus, and that sets all the neighborhood dogs to barking. One way or another, everyone finds out that spring is coming...

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  9. Stacy, What an interesting challenge. I don't have anything up outside yet, but I do have forced forsythia blooming in the house; I'll take that for my challenge and see what I can do with it. Fun. :-) -Jean

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    1. I'm looking forward to it, Jean!

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    2. I have finally posted "Five Views of Forsythia" (http://jeansgarden.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/five-views-of-forsythia/)which turned out to be a bigger challenge than I had anticipated. Before I was done, I had taken home a pile of books from both the botany and history sections of my college's library and had had at least two bouts of writer's block over trying to tame a surfeit of information into a coherent form. I started to feel some real empathy for those first-year students and their apples! In the end, though, I had fun and learned a lot. Enjoy. -Jean

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    3. Good heavens, Jean--I am in awe! What a wonderful post you've written. You are so good at condensing a wealth of information into interesting, manageable chunks. Wow. Thanks for taking part, and for undertaking such an intense research project, and all for fun, no less!

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  10. I hope i compose posts as beautifully as you do, meaning i hope i know how to describe an apple well. But i maybe just like the previous students in describing it, so i don't get much comments, haha!

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    1. Andrea, you're so kind--and I think you know how to describe an apple wonderfully, only maybe apple isn't maybe the right word in your case. It should be guava or something more tropical!

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  11. I've been hugely enjoying the crocuses at the Priory but having posted photos last year I haven't really bothered this year. I'm so behind with blogging at the moment but I'll try and do some - soonish.

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    1. Sounds great, Dave. As I recall I discovered your blog somewhere around crocus time last year. It may have been later, since I backtracked through some of your older posts while you were on your walking tour last year, but crocuses were my introduction to you and the Priory. Well--crocuses and that guy in your chain saw class (a mental image I will never be able to forget).

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    2. I'm very happy to be associated with crocuses and a boy trying to chop off his leg. Er, I think!

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  12. Hi Stacy,
    What a great idea. I was wondering what to say about crocuses, and now I know. I was led here by Dave (who has now done his crocus post). Come and have a look if you want my take on them:

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  13. Hi, Kininvie--thanks, and welcome. I enjoyed your take very much indeed!

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