Blooming Among The Weeds

This morning I was thinking about what to blog and my mind was blank. Since I did a hodge-podge last week, I didn't want to resort to that.

I looked outside and inspiration sparked. See those white flowers to your left? White Bells?

They're new. I didn't plant them. I've never had them in my garden before. I have plenty of Bluebells, but no white.


What a surprise. Like writing. Ohh--check out that turn of subject.

But, it's true. Haven't you ever been writing when a wildflower takes root in your garden of words and takes you on a new trail?

Sometimes it's perfect, blending into the greenery around it. And sometimes, it's like this Foxglove, the lone flower among the weeds. But it's hope. Hope that you can get your story back on track. Hope that there is some beauty in your thorny words.

I took this last picture as another example of errant Foxgloves rising out of the middle of blackberry vines. Those blackberries are going to be the bane of my summer this year. They've taken root under my bedroom window (first Foxglove picture) and in my wildflower bed, they've overtaken my catmint bush. Not easy to conquer a mint plant, but they are relentless.

But what I love about this picture is my chair in the background. I put it out under my apple trees this weekend when I mowed. I think I'm going to build a floating deck out there. I love the view and it's so serene under those trees.

So, I'm going to end with a teaser from my WIP--in which a wildflower in a conversation with my sister sparked the idea for a novel. Who knows if it will go anywhere, but it's been fun following the path it set into motion. 

The woman at the reception desk offers to validate my parking ticket. As I dig through my purse, I see her eyes widen as she takes a step back.

There comes a point in every encounter when the-you-look-familiar head tilt straightens to wide-eyed amazement.

Sometimes it’s instantaneous, sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes they’re quiet in their rejection and sometimes they’re loud and boisterous about it, singling me out to random passerbys. “You’re the sister!”

And there it is—the unwelcome notoriety—the unwelcome torch passed to me through her death.

It’s tough being the identical twin sister of public enemy number one.