Everything in its Season

Now that I am paying more attention to my surroundings, I am noticing that there is a season to everything, sometimes a very fleeting one, when you can see a certain flower bloom or an animal having its young, and then just as quickly it's all over. Then it becomes the season for something else.

For the past few days, it has been honeysuckle season. The sweet smell is wafting in the air. The bees know this, and so they take advantage of this opportunity to fill up. Does honey made from honeysuckle taste sweeter?

When I go out and hear bees buzzing by the honeysuckle, that's when I decide to take pictures of bees by the honeysuckle. I don't ask them to pose. I'm just an opportunistic picture snapper.

Because the bees are busy going about their own business, sometimes they don't pause long enough for me to get a good picture. Sometimes they even turn their backs on me!

The first cherry tree is also coming into season right now. If we want to pick its cherries, we have to do so soon, because we have many competitors.

For humans and chimpanzees. the seasons are a bit longer. You don't see significant changes every day, though every day is different, nonetheless.

There are changes in our behavior and our appearance, and in our day to day interactions, but the changes are more subtle.

How do I choose what to photograph? How do I choose what to write about? The answer is: whatever catches my eye. Whatever gets my attention. Whatever moves me. I have a new book coming out, scheduled for publication today. How did I choose what to write about? I think it was what was in season for me. At my time of life, at my stage of development, this is what caught my eye, captured my attention and made me think: what if a country rejected you, but you still loved it. 

Yesterday, it was skink season. Well, maybe it was not skink season for you, but it was for me. Here is how it happened. I went outside, and I saw a bee buzzing around my plants. "Maybe I'll take a picture of this bee," I thought to myself. But as I approached, the bee buzzed away. Then I saw a butterfly, and I got ready to take a picture, but it was gone before I could click. Then I heard some rustling and two skinks scampered away among the stones in my garden, each to a different position on the outer wall of my house. But not so fast that I could not film them.

The first skink was bigger and had less coloration around its face. It did not stick around very long, disappearing into a crack in the gutterwork by the roof. The second skink was smaller, slimmer and had a lot of reddish coloring around its face. It stayed around much longer.

What we write about is what we see. But what we see also depends on who we are and on our stage of life. I would not have seen those two skinks  a few years ago at the same time, because I might not have been alert enough to their existence, even if they were in season. It might have been skink season for everyone else, but not skink season for me.

What is in season for you today? Chances are that's what you're seeing.

The Subtle Transformations that We Seldom Notice

Everyone notices how cute a baby is.

Everyone can see how much more mature an adolescent appears.

But how did the transformation come about? What were all the awkward little stages? If you read all my blog posts and articles about Bow and look at all the pictures, you can see it happen gradually. But usually when a child grows, we do not notice.

 The same applies to flowers and fruit. Everybody notices the pretty cherry blossoms.

And who could fail to note when the cherries are ripe?

But how did they get that way? Lately I have been noticing some of the intermediate awkward moments, like a green cherry emerging from a pink flower cap.

The flowers on the cherry trees in my yard start out as white. But as they age, they become pink. Then the green fruit emerges, capped with a pink tuft.

Only later does the pink tuft disappear, and you see bunches of the green fruit, waiting to ripen.

Other awkward transformations are taking place all around me. For instance, the redbud blossoms have sprouted little miniature swords.

Those tiny, dagger-like protrusions will eventually become the well known seed pods. And guess what the dogwood is up to? Its blossoms -- the real ones -- have opened.

Remember that I mentioned the dogwood is a drupe? This means the four white petals are nothing but bracts, and the real action happens inside those little globe-like green things in the center. Those are the real flowers, and their tiny stamens and pistils are now open for business.

It has taken me a long time to notice some of these things. It has been twelve years since Bow was a baby and that's how long it took for me to get to the point of noticing when the little true blossoms inside the big false blossoms really open!

Yesterday I encountered another rabbit.

It was a pretty fast runner, so I was not able to observe any subtle details. It might take me another twelve years before I notice anything truly significant about rabbits. By then, Bow will be twenty-four.