Maine's Own Off-Topic Thread -- Pt.2 (directions, seller, bookstore)

[juststoppinby]

Elston, you should have started a thread with that thought. You have a wonderful way with words.

[Elcarim]

Leather Leaf Fern, Camelias and Amaryllis and also owls will always envoke feelings of my Grandma. She's collected photos and figurines of owls all my life. She was also an avid gardener and cook in her more mobile days. Now she just watches it on TV. She taught me many things about her two loves that I'm able to meld into my personal beliefs and experiences now. I'm being very careful to pass the teachings on to my children. She will live on forever through our lives!

My grandfather loved birds and whistled a lot. He also made things with his hands. He loved woodworking. He also built huge bird averies. They raised exotic birds for a number of years. Everytime I hear the birds outside in the morning, it takes my spirit back to their back porch, sitting in chairs with the sun just coming across my skin and I can smell the beautiful flowers she surrounded the house with.

They also had this HUGE oak tree on the front corner of the house that brought so much shade, she had to create a shade garden there, thus the start of the massive fern she grew for years. In the middle of Houston, TX right across the street from a little housing community for Spanish people you could walk down that sidewalk and hover at that end of the house and feel like you were in the middle of the forest. It was a magical feeling and my favorite place on the whole property! I had a fairy house in that tree at one time! I will cherish those sensory memories forever.

Isn't it funny how smells and sounds carry us to places far away more so than visual stimulus? I love to close my eyes and just drift. Very cool! If I ever disappear into the forest and don't come out for a few hours, you'll know I've been temporarily carried away!

[elston]

Originally Posted by starwalker

Trillium! WOW! I love that plant, and associate it with my dad as well. It really should also evoke my mom, as it was one of the early spring wildflowers that we would see when (in the olden days, back when one could take a drive in the country just for the heck of it! LOL) we would drive random country roads, my dad at the wheel of one of his Buicks. He would listen to "the game" on the radio and when we saw a place where we wanted to explore, Mom and I would get out and walk, sometimes collecting specimens for some craft project or another (always leaving many more than we picked to reproduce of course!) and sometimes just looking and listening.

It was always still "mud season" (though I don't remember it being called that in Michigan) when we make our first excursions and Trilliums were one of the early flowers that I learned to recognize from books and taught my mom about... so like I said, I should think of her, but instead Dad pops into mind, likely because that first trip was always his idea.

Mom, well, she belongs to the Bittersweet vines that we would pick in the fall, for decorations and wreaths. I haven't seen it wild in years, either, but I have found out that the American kind is ok to grow here in Maine, and I plan to naturalize some when I have my place.

My maternal grandmother goes with hollyhocks and Grandpa with the strawberries which he grew and sold (I helped pick every June.)

I so love that you also associate plants and people....and are sensitive to their evocative power....I just love that. Mom with her peach baskets full of violets and Dad's marvelous gardens from Cincinnati to Eastport and Dexter, they are all with me, every spring. The smell of wild Concord grapes brings to mind Mom's jellies and grape pie.

[starwalker]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

Isn't it funny how smells and sounds carry us to places far away more so than visual stimulus? I love to close my eyes and just drift. Very cool! If I ever disappear into the forest and don't come out for a few hours, you'll know I've been temporarily carried away!

Never really have had a sense of smell (when I was a kid, I used to think it was something grown ups invented to put one over on kids... like Santa and the tooth fairy!) and sounds do not do it for me, in general... but a bit of an image, or even the feel of a texture can transport me every bit as well I think.

[moughie]

Star, you can find bittersweet growing wild in Maine! It is so very lovely

I remember finding loads on Mackworth Island, outside of Portland.

What I really miss are the beautiful ladyslippers that would grow wild on the land around our home each spring.

[island mermaid]

Originally Posted by moughie

Star, you can find bittersweet growing wild in Maine! It is so very lovely

I remember finding loads on Mackworth Island, outside of Portland.

What I really miss are the beautiful ladyslippers that would grow wild on the land around our home each spring.

Moughie, finding Ladies Slippers has always been like finding a special treasure to me. We learned about them in 1st grade and how special they are to Maine, we were also taught to never pick them as they are so rare.

I walked Mackworth a couple years ago with a special friend, it's a great place and dog friendly too.

[Maine Writer]

I could use some good thoughts today, please. I can't find the sledgehammer to drop on my pinkie toe so I'm opting for the more painful marketing. I have two appointments today. I'm horrible at this so the best I can do is take this to them to try and hope they decide it's worth their money.

[Elcarim]

good thoughts good thoughts good thoughts..........MW, you are wonderful writer! It's the pencil on the other end that isn't always so sharp!! You'll do fine.

[dramamama6685]

*crosses fingers* MW is loved and hired by all who see her... and paid well

[msina]

All my best wishes for you today!! I hope everything goes well for you.