Library Lipstick - Missoula Public Library, Missoula, Montana

Oh, happy nostalgia, sparking at random! 

My green-thumbed mum nurtured a lipstick plant as splendid as this one now blooming in the Missoula Public Library's front entry. Early (ie brown pigtails, cherubic grin with dimples) memory snapshots include standing in clear, cool winter sunlight that streamed through the living room picture window, peering keenly at scarlet blooms emerging from the "lipstick" casing, standing as close as I dared and still able to truthfully declare,  "I'm not touching!".

Of course, I probably was supposed to be dusting, so the Mayberry-esque memory disintegrates right about there...aaand, cut! then fade into the scene with the little red tricycle and pig-tailed child gamely peddling round and round on the one flat pad of concrete on the whole farm. 

Call me Pollyanna, but I hold that it's not a bad thing to remember the best of times - provided you still subscribe to living and learning.

Freelance Feather - Missoula, Montana

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all..."

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 
from “Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

(Part of the reason I adore this poem is because my dear Sis #2 shared it with me as encouragement many, many moons ago.Thanks, sissy, for a melodic and enduring reminder of truth.)

No Picnic - Missoula, Montana

"If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?"

- Marie Dressler (1868-1934)

Singing Pines, Perhaps - Missoula, Montana

"Born like the pines to sing,

   The harp and song in m’ breast,

Though far and near,

There’s none to hear,

I’ll sing as th’ winds request."

- from Born Like the Pines by James Ephraim McGirt  (1874–1930)

Needles Of The Pines - Missoula, Montana

"If Mother Nature patches 
leaves of trees and vines, 

I'm sure she does her darning 

with the needles of the pines, 

They are so long and slender; 

and somewhere in full view, 

She has her threads of cobweb 

and a thimble made of dew." 

- from Pine Needles by William Hamilton Hayne, (1856-1929), 

included in The Pine-Needle Basket Book By Mrs. M. J. McAfee, 

Originator of Pine-Needle Basketry 

When Trains Were Magic - Missoula, Montana

"...Oh, for the days when trains were magic:

iron dragons breathing smoke and fire, 

lashing long tails through the valleys 

with monstrous strength that never tired..."

- from Memory Rides The Rails - Poem Time Forgot by Faye Gibson 

Not So Cold - Missoula, Montana

"Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off...Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

- from Hyperion, Book III, Chapter IV, (1839) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Flash-Frozen - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

Massive slabs of ice stacked willy-nilly block our usual winter walking trail, far up from the edge of Rattlesnake Creek. A sudden temperature change in mid-December created just the right conditions for dramatic flash-freezing, followed by a large-scale shattering and surge downstream, which changed the winter landscape overnight. And, of course, we can be thankful for weeks of bitter below-freezing temperatures for preserving this phenomenon for our continued enjoyment.

Click here to read The Missoulian newspaper's reporting of this winter spectacle.