Last Saturday was a perfect spring day in this part of Arkansas. The sky was a vivid blue with an occasional puffy, white cloud floating by. The temperature climbed to the low 80’s as the afternoon wore on. I spent the morning watching my nieces play soccer then came home and opened my front and back doors to let the sweet smelling air drift through my house. Next, I hit the yard and gardens for some heavy duty outdoorsy work. Pure bliss!! I didn’t come inside until dusk.
Around midnight, I was in bed reading a good book when a large moth came flying into the room. It was the biggest brown moth I had ever seen. I decided I had better get up to catch the critter and put it outside. I didn’t want it flying around and scaring me to death while I was sleeping. I put my book down, sat up on the side of the bed and the moth decided to fly right into my face. It wasn’t a moth. It was a bat. A BAT IN MY BEDROOM.
At that point in time, I began moving pretty fast. I ran to the kitchen for a broom. How else does one defend oneself from a bat? I opened the front door then paused in my living room as I watched the bat glide silently down the hall into my home office, then into the bathroom, then back into the bedroom. The bat was so graceful in flight and so quiet. Yes, even in frightful peril, I pause to observe the wonder and beauty of nature. However, when the bat flew to the living room in my face again, I began to think Dracula thoughts.
After observing my face up close and personal for a few seconds, the bat calmly flew out the door and onto my screened porch. It took me awhile to get it off my porch. It kept stopping to hang on the screen every few minutes. It finally flew through the screen door I had propped open and went off into the night to resume its batty life.
I’m pretty sure the bat entered my home through the back door. At some point after dark, I turned the back porch light on and took out garbage and recycling. It must have flown in then. I don’t know how it managed to stay unobserved until I went to bed. Maybe it was hanging in a corner. Creepy!!
Sunday night I was working at my computer when I heard a tap, tap, tapping at the back door screen. I promise this is true…..it was the BAT.
A good three-fourths of my back yard is actually garden. The large bed in the foreground is right outside my back door and contains rosemary, daylilies, liatris, purple coneflowers, lilies and a host of other flowers and herbs. The bed narrows and extends all the way to the barbed-wire gate. A lot of the garden looks like lawn because so many perennials weren’t up when I took this photo in March. A strip of lawn runs from the gate to my drive way. I can’t plant anything there because the rural electric company frequently has to drive through my yard to get to power lines and poles that extend from my property down into the woods and eventually to other homes in the country neighborhood. You can see my morning glory tee pee and a small corner of what I call my large garden where there is a section of white picket fence.
The east side of my yard has a parade of shrubs that extend from the front corner to the back corner. Two old-fashioned lilacs are the parade’s opening act. Can you see the fat bumblebee in the center near the top? One of my bedroom windows opens to the east so that I can go to sleep smelling lilacs in the early spring.
A large circular bed in my front yard is home to tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus and snowflakes in the spring. Here we see trumpet daffodils, dwarf red tulips and tiny Tete-a-Tete narcissus. Creeping phlox borders one side of this bed and miniature, variegated ivy completes the circle on the other side.
Another participant in my shrub parade is spiraea vanhouttei more commonly known as Bridal Wreath spirarea.
After the red tulips and daffodils have faded away, the pink tulips bloom. Then, when the pink tulips are fully opened and beginning to fade, the diva of all tulips takes the stage. Queen of the Night is always the last tulip to bloom. Her buds are deceptively lavender in color, but as the buds open her rich, dark purple blooms appear. You can see a few fading snowflakes (leucojum) in the background and my Easter bunny banner.
All of these pictures were taken in March and early April. My spring fling is over for the year. We’ve had lots of rain and everything is growing rapidly. We should be ready for the next garden party in June!
Filed under: Music
A week or so ago I watched Oliver Stone’s The Doors for the first time. Honestly, I didn’t much care for the movie. I didn’t even finish it. However, the hour or so of the film that I did watch made me think and, surprisingly enough, my mind began comparing the similarities between Jim Morrison and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Mozart and Morrison both traveled extensively while they were very young. Morrison’s parents were both in the military so the family moved quite often. Mozart’s father was one of Europe’s leading musical teachers. He gave up his career when the young Mozart’s musical genius emerged and he began to tour throughout Europe with his young son and daughter. Historians report that these tours encompassed thousands of miles. The hours of travel were tedious for young Wolfgang. He passed the time by composing music in his mind which he would later write down in its entirety with only a few minor errors. Wolfgang also imagined complex stories about a magical place he called The Kingdom of Back. Likewise, Morrison’s imagination flourished while traveling as a young child. A 1947 trip in New Mexico became a pivotal point in his life. The family happened upon a traffic accident and seven-year old Jim awoke from a nap in the backseat of the car to witness a scene of death and destruction. “Souls of dead Indians–maybe one or two of them–were just running around, freaking out, and just landed in my soul, and I was like a sponge, ready to sit there and absorb it.” Morrison also cited that this incident was the first time he felt fear.
Mozart and Morrison lived dissolute lives while producing prolific amounts of art. Morrison was a film student, musician and poet while Mozart wrote compositions in every musical genre that existed at the time. Both men considered themselves seekers and were enamoured with mysticism. Morrison’s stunts while under the influence of drugs and alcohol are legendary. Mozart consumed copious amounts of alcohol and often partied until dawn. Both men exhibited vulgar and loutish behavior. The Doors were fired from a gig at Whisky A-Go-Go when Morrison used profanity while performing on stage. Mozart wrote music with profane lyrics and was eventually “kicked out on his arse” by his employer the Prince-Archbishop Colloredo.
The deaths of Mozart and Morrison provide even more similarities. Controversies abound to this day when it comes to how and why both men died. Heart attack, drug overdose and alcohol poisoning are a few of the theories linked to Morrison’s death. There is even a question as to whether or not Jim Morrison is actually dead. Mozart battled illness after illness his entire life, but there are still conflicting theories about his death. Some historians say Mozart’s health gradually declined before his death while others say his death was sudden and a shock to all who knew him. There are dozens of theories about what actually killed Mozart. Influenza, trichinosis and rheumatic fever are a few of the illnesses that are said to have caused his demise.
Regardless of how either man lived or died, the fact remains that both Mozart and Morrison were musicians and artists of the highest caliber. Neither man was afraid to explore new territory when it came to their musical endeavors. They were cutting edge artists for their times. Their music has been described as violent and sensual. In a sense, that description quite adequately describes their lives.
