Mary Beth Writes

Wisteria is a plant that grows on woody twining vines and is in the legume (beans!) family. It’s native to China, Korea, Japan, southern Canada, and eastern US.

Wisterias climb by twining their stems around any available support. Japanese wisteria twines clockwise, Chinese wisteria twines counterclockwise. The plant can grow to a huge size; there’s a Chinese wisteria in California that covers more than an acre and weighs 250 tons. Both Chinese and Japanese wisteria were introduced in the US in the 1800’s. These days, because of their hardiness and tendency to escape cultivation, non-native wisterias are considered invasive species. Also, all parts of the wisteria plant are a little or a lot poisonous.

Botanist Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859) said he named the genus Wisteria in memory of American physician Caspar Wistar; when questioned about the spelling, Nuttall said it was for "euphony.” Nuttall’s biographer speculated that it may have something to do with Nuttall's friend Charles Jones Wister.

Thomas Nuttall, who never married, sounds like a fabulous man. He traveled widely, explored places barely seen by Europeans at that time - Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, the Missouri River, and the Great Lakes. He collected and categorized plants, taught at Harvard several years and then quit to go off exploring again. Usually with just one or two other men (obviously, European women were rarely able to join expeditions). One can hope this interesting man found love and joy as well as plants and trees during his adventures.

I was sitting here, remembering the Wisteria I actually walked into on a Santa Fe sidewalk. Those flowers were outrageously gorgeous. The overpoweringly sweet scent immediately time-traveled me back to Grandma Esther’s lavender bathroom that smelled that exact sweetness. Now I know, Grandma bought Wisteria talc.

Wisteria Fable

The nation was ravaged by feral canaries. When people walked out of their homes - mauve, plum, indigo, violet, orchid, periwinkle, mulberry, heliotrope, hyacinth, amaranthine, azure, and damson birds would streak from the sky, shrieking tiny chirps, delivering picks and pecks like small pneumatic nail guns.

Citizens were wounded, worried, scared, and bleeding from the tiny holes in their heads and shoulders and arms.

Those who could, start working from home. Socializing was reduced to urgent and bewildered Zooming. Essential workers wore helmets and shoulder pads to sprint across driveways and parking lots into their warehouse jobs. Delivered restaurant and grocery store orders arrived at one’s porch with peck-hole leaks, torn fruits, ripped vegetables, and decimated packaging.

No one knew what to do. Journalists reported on their crisis from their white living rooms while fuchsia and lavender canaries rapped noisily at their windows.

The future was beak-bleak.

Then one day an elegant 12-year-old child walked out of his house - and the canaries stood still in the air. For that child, on that day, wore an entire outfit covered in small mirrors. Every square inch of his outfit glittered with shards of broken mirrors, and the round mirrors from old makeup compacts, and the beveled edges of outdated bathroom medicine cabinets. There were spangles hanging from his lapels. His uncle had forgotten his cowboy hat the last time he visited; the boy had covered it with rainbow strips of color mirrors edged with dangling beads. He wore gym shoes with mirrors super-glued to the toes and heels. The boy was a flashing, glittering, vision of light.

As he sauntered down the sidewalk canaries from around the state were stunned by his brilliance and then attracted to his arcs and rays of flashing light. The canaries circled his head and shoulders, looking at themselves, preening, cooing, weaving, and wafting. The elegant boy had evoked his own murmuration of Wisterian canaries.

Then, the birds fell in love with each other. They zipped to far-flung jungles to lay teeny blue eggs and raise tiny periwinkle families. The canaries never bothered humans again.

From that day onwards when Wisteria blooms, those who know how to be grateful, are.

No problem is truly fixed until wrongdoers see themselves clearly.

 

 

Comments

I so enjoy your posts, and your stories. Thank you, Mary Beth. Patricia
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Thanks for saying so! I appreciate hearing it!

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Y is for Yellowstone

9/27/2023

Back in February I asked you to give me topics to write about that would correspond to the alphabet. Sometimes several of you sent ideas for one letter and sometimes I wrote about all of them (I’s and S’s) Here we are at letter Y for which your suggestions are Yummy Food and Yawns. The word yawn absolutely makes me yawn; no way I could write about that - I would yawn for hours. I worked on Yummy Food but could only find a scolding voice about Americans eating too much sugar. Bah. True but not interesting.

So, I gave Y a go again. Y is for?

"I was Scott Simon's teller."

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X is for Xeriscape

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W is for Wonder

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To whomever suggested Wonder - Thank You!  ‘Wonder’ has been bobbing in my mind like a frog in a pond.

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1.) X signature substitution

2.) xylophone on a string pulled by a toddler

3.) xenophobia

4.) Xmas. 

If you have an opinion respond with the one you would like me to attempt. I will choose whichever X gets the most comments.

There will be no gerrymandering in this election.

GNTL - NAMI

9/7/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

NAMI

Most of you know about my former weird and lovely job of coordinating an employability skills program for Huber-qualified inmates in the Racine County Jail (that’s a mouthful). Early on I realized that most of the people I would work with were people with 1.) huge addiction problems, and 2.) underlying and over-the-top and to-the-side just lying around mental health issues.

V is for Vocabulary

9/6/2023 

For those who are new here - This year I am writing about topics, in alphabetical order, that were suggested to me by readers. Sometimes this is hard! 

IRTNOG

My cousin-in-law Dave has some powerfully thorough avocations (for fun and profit he earned a PhD in biochemistry; you will notice this in his list). This year, among other pursuits, he has been collecting words which have appeared in our culture since 1945, which was the year he also appeared in our culture.

Tag Cloud

9/11 17 minutes 500 Words A-Z AARPtaxes AAUW abortion Acadia accident Accountable Advent aging Alaska anniversary antibiotics antlers apples appointments Arrows art Ashland August Augustine aunts baby Badlands balance Baldwin Barbara Barkskins Beauty Becky Becoming Esther Berry birthday bistro BLM Blue BookReport books boy scout Bread BrokenDays BuyAngry Cabeza de Vaca Cahokia calendars Canada canoe cat romance cats cello Chicago China Choosing Christmas cilantro Cinnabuns circus climate change clouds Clowns clutter Colonialism comet ComfortZone CommonSense community consumerism Cops Corvid-19 Courage Covid-19 Crazy creditreport creosote CrimeShows danger DarkRiver death Debate December DecisionFatigue decluttering democracy dentist depression Destination Today Detroit Didion disasterprep dogs dollhouse Dreams Duty Easter eBay Echoes Eclipse election EmilyDickinson eschatology Esquipulas exit polls eyes Fable FairTrade family farmer Fata Morgana ferns firealarm Fitness Five Flatbread Flexible flu Food Pantry Fort de Chartres frame Franc FrancGarcia friends frugal FrugalHacks Frugality frustration Ft.Ticonderoga fungi fusion Galena Gannets Garden GarfieldParkConservatory Gaspe genius geode GeorgeFloyd gerrymandering ghosts gifts girls GNTL gorgons goulash GovernorThompsonStatePark Graduation grandkids granola groceries Guatemala gum guns Hair happiness HaveYouEver? hawks healthcare Healthinsurance hearings heart heaven HelleKBerry heroes hike History home HomeRepair Honduras Hope HowCrowGotOutofJail humor hurricane Ice Cream idiosyncrasy igloos impeachment Innkeeper Instincts integrity InternetPrivacy Interview InviteMe2Speak James Baldwin Jan 6 Janus jewelry JoyceAndrews Judy JulianofNorwich Jump justice Karen kites ladder Lady Lamb LangstonHuges LaphamPeak laundry LeeLeeMcKnight lemming Len Light Lincoln Little Women LockedOut Loki loneliness LouisArmstrong Love Ludington Macaw macho Manitoulin MargaretFuller Maria Hamilton Marquette marriage Marsden Hartley masks Mayan MayaWorks meme Memories men Middlemarch MilesWallyDiego MindfulChickens Mistakes MLK moon Mother MothersDay mounds mouser movies museums must-haves Mustapha NAMI Nancy Drew Newfoundland New Mexico New York City Nomadland nope observation OBUUC Ocotillo OnaJudge ordinary OscarRomero osprey Outside oximeter Parade mayhem PastorBettyRendon Paul Hessert PDQ Penny persimmon photos Pi Pies pineapples poetry Preaching privacy procrastination Protest QE2 Quern quest Questions Rabbit holes racism reading recipe recipes recommendations Remember RepresentationMatters Reruns responsetoKapenga Retirement rhubarb Ricky rime RitesofPassage romance Rosemary Ruether Roses Roti Ruth SamaritanWoman Sanctuary Sandhillcranes Santuario de Chimayo SaraKurtz SaraRodriguez satellites ScottSimon sculpture Seasons Sermon ServantsoftheQuest sewing Shepherd Shontay ShortStory shoulder sick sickness Slower snow Social Security SofritoBandito solstice South Dakota SpaceShuttle spirituality spring square feet staining stars stele Stereotypes stories StoryStarts stream monitoring stress Survival swim Talent taxes teenager thankgsgiving Thanksgiving TheBridge TheMaid ThePerpetualYou therapy ThreeBillBoards Three Thing ThreeThings Three Things TidalBore TimeBeing toddler Tom tortillas Trains travel Traveler Tubing turtle Twilight Bark Tyrone Ukraine Ulysses Grant Umbrella UnrelatedObservations Up North urgency vacation vaccine Valentines vanilla Vietnam vision VivianWokeUpDrowning Vocabulary vole volunteer WalkingAndSeeing Wampanaog war WarsanShire weather weaving Webs wedding whines WhyAttendChurch Wiley Willa WillaCather Wisteria Won! Wonder words Xeriscape Yellowstone
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