JULIE LINDAHL
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • WRITING
    • Books >
      • The Pendulum >
        • English
        • Swedish
      • Rose in the Sand
      • Letters from the Island
      • On My Swedish Island
    • POEMS & SHORT PROSE
    • Columnist
  • Collaborations
  • Events & Media
  • CONTACT

What You Read - Chapter 1. Book 1. Part 1: "Our Healing Plants"

2/11/2018

0 Comments

 
"What You Read" is a short story I am releasing in ten parts in this blog. Once a week on Sunday a new part will be released. It is inspired by the work I did for my upcoming book, the expanded version of "The Pendulum."

​
Their spines were bound firmly in green and red fabric, and from the time that you gave them to me, stroking that fine weave became my secret addiction. The truth was that the robust orange marigold and the lithe-stalked blue pansies on the hard cover of the second in the two-part series about medicinal plants, burst my nine-year-old heart each time that I looked at them. They reminded me of you: of your broad, durable shoulders - from farming stock, you said - juxtaposed with your long, elegant fingers when they poured morning coffee, your addiction, into a gold-rimmed porcelain cup perched on a matching saucer. All of my longing aspired to reproduce something equally as beautiful with my sketching pencils and paint brushes, but equal always falls short in art. It was just as impossible as to believe that I could ever know you; a Sisyphean task that I knew I would never give up to the end of my days.

“Our healing plants are of very special beauty,” declared the German introduction on the first page. It satisfied me that the plants in this collection were ours – yours and mine – despite the fact that we came from different worlds that intersected because I was your granddaughter.  At the tender age of nine, my plant kingdom was a jumble of palms, pines, orchids and roses that whizzed past me like a slide show in the quick succession of countries and continents I had lived in with my family. It was an ephemeral experience without a lasting sensual imprint, so that when I came to those illustrations where the stringy roots of the plants had been drawn in detail, I saw myself dangling above the ground, uprooted on the page.

This was a clear contrast to you and your plant kingdom which was the same as in this series, not because you hadn’t experienced anything else, but because you were deeply, inextricably rooted in it. In 1918, your parents, farming gentry from Lower Saxony who were devoted to the abdicated Kaiser, sent you to the German rather than the Latin school in the small town near their estate. It was one of the last morsels of pride for them to pass onto you in a nation humiliated in the aftermath of the Great War. These medicinal plants would heal not only because of the miraculous powers of nature in general, but also because they were German and therefore possessed strength and quality. Pride masked the more practical explanations, including that when the antiseptic for tending to the stumps of veterans had run out, there was still the marigold salve. One could never yield to the betrayers of the nation.

Despite or because of the distance of time and place between us, I turned the pages avidly and checked in pencil those plants I thought I had seen. Each check was an affirmation of our common interest and our affection for one another that I hoped could bridge any difference. To make the point, I noted in my best child’s print under Monarda didyma or bergamot that, “I have this flower in a flower pot.” Whether I did or didn’t wasn’t the point. It meant that we had shared experiences, and therefore I could open another of the closed doors between us. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    See About.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    June 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

JULIE LINDAHL © COPYRIGHT 2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photo used under Creative Commons from stavale8099
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • WRITING
    • Books >
      • The Pendulum >
        • English
        • Swedish
      • Rose in the Sand
      • Letters from the Island
      • On My Swedish Island
    • POEMS & SHORT PROSE
    • Columnist
  • Collaborations
  • Events & Media
  • CONTACT