Bleeding Hearts

It's a flower and so much more

In recent years, early summer in Central New York has been about days of dodging raindrops, slogging through mud puddles, and hearing your sump pump kick on. So when it’s not actively raining, it’s time to find those things outside your house that make you happy.

This does it for me.

I find myself wandering the village looking for signs of perennial life. Eventually I look at what pops up along the foundations and crawls up the walls of village houses and then I take what I guess are proof-of-life photos.

In spite of the most depressing news imaginable that keeps me wrapped in a shawl and anchored to a chair in my living room, my photographs of flowers hugging walls and growing against foundations of field stone and cut limestone, keep me company and remind me that periodically climbing out of my chair and out of my head is a good thing. These perennials become a lifeline to the idea that in spite of trying to hack everything to pieces, these plants — like fundamental ideals of decency, kindness, and charity — can come back.