Tag Archives: essay

Let’s Go Literal

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I am literally challenged by this week’s Daily Press photo challenge. I am challenged by literalness.

grid1

I grow uncomfortable around ambiguous phrases or terms, like questions that begin with “How do you like…” As in “How do you like your job?”

What is the actual question here? Is it like the phrase “How do you take your coffee?” I like my coffee with cream and sugar. I like my job with very little supervision and an extremely high salary. I seem to drink a lot of black coffee. Guess we don’t always get how we like.

But maybe the question simply means “Do you like your job?” In which case, the answer might be “yes” or “no.” But when “how” is tacked on at the beginning of the question, single-syllabic answers seem no longer appropriate.

In a question format, “how” becomes an adverb (I think; don’t quote me on that), which suddenly makes it all complicated with the need for nouns and adjectives and such.

“How do you like your job?”
“Yes.”
It just doesn’t work that way.

The Daily Post’s photo challenge theme this week is Grid. “We often superimpose a mental grid over things we photograph to help with composition,” the post begins. “This week, let’s go literal.” Michelle the Daily Post person suggests, “This week, let’s take the humble grid out of the shadows, and make it the star.”

Go literal? Suddenly I am compulsively pulling up dictionary.com to look up the literal meaning of “grid.” And since a “grid” is defined as a “grating,” I have to look up “grating,” as well.

This whole thing is, indeed, grating. On my nerves. Guess I’ll have to just grid and bear it. (Ahhhh, she breaks under pressure…)

Definition of “grating” and hence, by inference, also the definition of “grid” ~

a framework of parallel or crossed bars, used as a partition, guard, cover, or the like.*

*Emphasis mine. Mostly because I’ve always wanted to say “Emphasis mine.” **

** And also because I like to use asterisks.

After all this grate research, I have determined that my photos this week are in fact literal depictions of “or the like.”

How do you like them?

grid2 grid3 grid4

A Symbol by Any Other Name

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“As a child, I always knew it was springtime when I opened my bedroom window and caught the subtle, heartwarming aroma of the season’s first blossoms wafting across the swamplands of home. Yep, if the skunk cabbage was blooming, summer was just around the corner.”

~ Spring is in the Air

Skunk Cabbage

If you were to ask me my favorite flower, I might tell you it is the Lysichiton americanus. But that would be far too pretentious. You know that whole “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” line? A Lysichiton americanus, by its other name, smells like… well, like its namesake.

“Skunk cabbage” didn’t get its name from any black-and-white striped color scheme. It’s named for its distinctive “skunky” odor. So am I joking that it’s my favorite flower? Nope.

Growing up in a “wetland” area (formerly known as a swamp), the smell of skunk cabbage was indeed a harbinger of spring, which meant warmer weather and maybe just a tad less rain. Or maybe it meant warmer rain and a tad less weather. I forget.

But the symbolism of the skunk cabbage doesn’t just stop at being a seasonal reminder. Despite its stinky name, the plant is quite beautiful. Large, lush green leaves, bright yellow flowers. It livens even the fustiest of swamplands. And it does so by rising regally out of its surrounding mud and mire.

Somehow I find that inspiring. More so than a hothouse rose or a pampered orchid. It is raw no-fuss nature at its best. Simple beauty despite its odoriferous moniker. To me it symbolizes dignity, poise – maybe even grace – while amidst the muck of worldly living.

So, come Mother’s Day or my birthday or any other day one might be compelled to send me a bouquet of flowers, let it be roses. Come on, you didn’t expect me to say skunk cabbage, did you? Symbolism only goes so far.

Skunk Cabbage 2skunk cabbage painting

Weekly Photo Challenge: Symbol