This one had me pondering . . . a good book, flowers, painting. In the end, I thought of what seems to give me the most pleasure. The natural world, flowers, plants – the world outside that is simply there. Sometimes we manipulate it, such as by planting flowers, and other times it is just being itself, chaotic nature.
Here, sunflowers. A family member was in Las Vegas when the earthquakes of July 4 and 5 hit the Los Angeles area. Her pool sloshed over, inundating her garden with salty, chlorinated water. She lost a lot of plants. I had sent her a picture of some sunflowers she had given me, soon to bloom, and that is when I found out she had lost her plants. My idea was to (maybe) paint some sunflowers for her, but unfortunately these did not turn out too well. Still, there was the idea and the pleasure of painting sunflowers . . .
Here, Joshua Trees. I really get a bang out of these crazy-looking plants, which are very limited in their topographical area for survival, and as the world warms (it really isn’t, per the government), these plants are becoming endangered. When the US government shut down, Joshua Tree National Monument (or Park?) was heavily vandalized. Many of these trees take centuries to get big – and then some fool decides they are fair game to destroy.
The natural world is one filled with simple pleasures for our delight. Some delight in destroying things of beauty, wrecking the work of time. To me, this is a really sad, pathetic statement about human beings, but then there are those who also work to save our natural world before it disappears. I am very grateful for these heroes who work to save the simple pleasures of the natural world.
Journey by Paper 