Emily Brisse

    Another installment of Name-That-Plant-Growing-in-the-Marsh: Bittersweet nightshade Eastern daisy fleabane (aster family) Some kind of lovely leaf -- who knows what this is??? Daisy Creeping bellflower ? ? Some kind of grass ??? Motherwort Clover ? Common mullein My boy, out in it all Quite a few plants I couldn't identify this month, folks, so I need your help. What did I get right? What did I miss? Goodness, this world is a wild and beautiful place.

    For those of you who have been here since the very beginning of Landing on Cloudy Water, you might remember my early attempts to learn and document the names of what I saw growing around me. First there was the snowdrop , then the Siberian squill , then the forsythia , then the tarda tulip , and finally the wild columbine. Well, a child came into my life a bit after all that, and naming him, I suppose, claimed my attention. I am happy to say, though, that he is now at the age where he wants to know what he's seeing, and that has given me new cause to do the same. So, I bring you yet again, a series in wild identification: Plant Literate! (Although I seem to be always a month behind, and have no time for individual posts, so it will most likely happen in bursts. Ah, well. Better something than nothing, is my current motto.) This is a doubly-sweet endeavor because what I've been learning these past months has been focused on the growing ...

We were lucky enough to travel to the Jalisco region of Mexico over my spring break this year. To say I was ready for another adventure that involved significant travel is an understatement, so I hope these photos give you a sense of the height of my wonder and gratitude. I love where I spend my every-day, but going elsewhere is like being given new eyes. I looked and I looked. More photos later (and yes, that little boy in the orange shirt racing the wind is my dear one). Viva!

 So, as I've mentioned here previously, we bought a fixer-upper this past spring. Where the house is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters (the unpredictable and quirky type), it is the land (of course) that has already merged with whatever voice I might use to write about it. One rainy morning, and it is all sanctuary and joy.  Hope you are relishing your summers, friends!

Tonight I am not in London or Grindelwald or Strasbourg or Basel or the Alsace or Lahr . I am not in New York or LA. I am not in Costa Rica or Spain or over the rocky edges of Iceland. I am not in Chicago, or Montpelier, or even Minneapolis. I am not on the Chesapeake Bay . Tonight I am here. My back pressed into pillows, a laptop under my fingers, the windows open open to the night that was yellow then orange then pink and now blue. There are clouds that look like hills, a sky that looks like ocean. There are lights in the distance from the ball park. There are shadows of birds flying toward nests. In the field, each individual blade of grass holds itself up, watching the last of the day slip west.  I hold myself up. I watch this day, just as I've watched the others, sometimes from places very far away.  I think and I think and I feel and I remember and I imagine. The windows are open open. One star. Another. Fireflies. The moon. Breeze. Breathing. Baby no...