This post is brought to you by the colour purple. It was also written about two weeks earlier, but I decided to withhold posting it until today, in honour of Terry Pratchett’s memory and The Glorious Revolution of the Twenty Fifth of May. How do they rise up?
Featured photo courtesy of Agent J
Written on 15 May 2017: Earlier this week I woke up to a message from a good friend of mine in Austria. There were no words, just a photo of lilacs.
It’s a wonderful way to wake up. I mean, I’m not a morning person. In two and a half years, Hawkeye has yet to turn me into a morning person. Waking up early every day does not make you a morning person if you’re still cursing humanity because you’re up and stumbling around on your feet before noon. But sometimes you wake up and there’s an unexpected surprise awaiting you and being forced to drag your sorry ass out of bed becomes just that little bit less harsh.
This particular morning it was a friend remembering that one of my absolute favourite things about spring is purple lilacs. Lilacs always take me back to one of my core memories from childhood – the smell of lilacs during a spring rain in Russia. They grew across the driveway from our apartment building and I remember standing on the balcony on overcast days, smelling the rain and and sweet scent of lilac blossoms and watching them wave and rustle in he wind.
A day or two later I was visiting a friend who has lilac trees growing in the back of her magnificent garden and I got to snap a photograph of them. And Google Auto-Awesome decided to take the image and jazz it up somewhat. You may recall I wrote about Google Auto Awesome on Day #105.
I still have not figured out what triggers an Auto Awesome photo to be created or how it chooses what effects to apply, but there are definitely certain trends, because I got this two weeks earlier:
Surprisingly however, an entire series of photographs taken of a spectacular wisteria on Shelbourne Road didn’t prompt any additional awesomeness.
I had been dying to photograph this wisteria for a while but it grows up the facade of a private residence and any close up photographs would require wandering into the gated driveway and hanging out by the front door and windows. Being reluctant to look like a creepy stalker with a camera, I resisted the temptation for a while, until last Friday when I was running past on my way to collect Hawkeye and spotted the owners of the house loading up the car for what looked like a weekend trip. I slowed down long enough to babble awkward praise about their wisteria tree (I actually didn’t know at the time that’s what it was but the gentleman looking at me with a bemused expression kindly identified it for me). Thinking if I was already in for a penny, I may ass well go in for a pound, I asked if it would be ok for me to come back and take some close up pictures and got permission to do so. By the time I returned with Hawkeye, they had left. I felt much less awkward parking the stroller in their empty driveway and taking some close up photographs.
It was my first time being up close with this type tree and it is does have a very decadent, luxurious sort of look to it. However, I still prefer my lilacs.
Edited on 24 May to add: The little purple wildflowers have now blossomed to their absolute maximum, it feels. The above photo was taken in early May. The same clump of flowers looked absolutely sumptuous this morning, and a driveway entirely hedged by them made me nearly dance with joy. On the inside, of course. I already look weird stalking the street with my camera phone, I’m not about to add to the weirdness.
All the little angels rise up, rise up.
All the little angels rise up high!
How do they rise up, rise up, rise up?
How do they rise up, rise up high?
They rise heads up, heads up, heads up, they rise heads up, heads up high!*
*Night Watch by Sir Terry Pratchett , 2002
The Feathered Rose 