spring stroll

I'm not writing as much as I would like, or rather, I should be... For one thing, now that spring is here, after a long gray winter, it is hard not to go outside and wander around among the sprouting buds of the forest and through the colorful displays of stores in the city. Plus, I have a boyfriend who is very adept at finding interesting events to go and addictive sci-fi/anime shows to watch. It is quite disastrous. Yes, it is.

So here are some harvests from my stroll along the abandoned railroad behind my house and a small forest next to it.

It is certainly strange to start a topic of spring with a picture of a dead, dried-up hemlock from last summer. A shadow of it, to make matters worse. Yet, I was totally fascinated by the symmetrical image it casted on the rusty rail. So, so be it.


I didn't realize that the forest next to the railroad was literally covered with wild flowers of all sorts until I walked into it the other day. Last spring, my mother was in a hospital and I was too busy to do anything other than absolute necessity. The spring before, and all the springs before, on that matter, I was not even here. So, this spring is virtually the first one I enjoy to the full in Chicago.


Probably a child picked this blue squill, lost interest (just the way a child is supposed to be), and discarded it carelessly on the decaying crossbeam in the woods. The fading blue of the flowers and the pale yellow green of the stem and the fruits created an inadvertent beauty against the rugged, dry brown of the log.


A part of the ground was thickly covered with this plant, which I haven't been able to correctly identify. The yellow petals had strangely plasticky shine to them, making them look like fake flowers often found in rural bathrooms.