Life Finds a Way

Posted on March 15, 2012 by fsdthreshold

I think I’ve got the wording right. That’s a quote from Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton: “Life finds a way.” You can try to breed dinosaurs to be all female, but you’re up against the power of life, which was designed to be pretty tenacious.

Look what I discovered in my backyard yesterday, amid the general Mordor-like desolation:

Life Finds a Way

I’ve been watching the green blades of the leaves for a week or more, wondering what might come up. Does anyone know what these flowers are? Crocuses is my best guess, but it’s only a guess. They couldn’t have been arranged any more perfectly if they’d been planted. There are precisely three, facing in slightly different directions. Faith, Hope, and Love, I suppose. All around them is brown and gray earth, twigs, half-buried bricks, mud, and trash that I pick up when I can.

Here’s something else I like:

The Hill at the End of Broadway

This hill rises at the top of my steadily-rising street. It’s at one end of my daily walk. We who grow up in the flatness of central Illinois think there must be something more to hills than a heap of earth. There must be something inside, right? This one always makes me think of Moria or a great dungeon as in Dungeons & Dragons — especially since there’s decrepit stonework at the bottom, and what seems to be a brooding entrance. Surely there are dark halls beneath the trees! Surely “older and viler things than Orcs” sleep in the deep places of the Earth. What else could this hill be for?

"In Hollow Halls Beneath the Fells"

Don’t the roots of those trees look pretty Middle-earth-like? The place I buy gasoline is up this road, and I always enjoy driving up between these dungeon-concealing hills. This past winter, there was a frozen waterfall of icicles on the left.

Another Hill

This all reminds me of these lines from The House of the Worm, my work in progress:

She peered curiously across the river. “Have you ever been over there?”

Paddy pushed his hat back a little and studied the wood with a wistful, loving gaze. “We surely tried, when we were boys. There’s hardly a path, even for a rabbit. The tangle marches on and on like that, guarding its secrets, for thirty miles and more, till it finally ends in the downlands, which roll on from there to the sea.”

“There could be lost cities,” my sister breathed happily.

“Ruined castles,” I added. “Tribes with green skin.”

“Quite right, too,” said Paddy seriously.

 

Sigh . . . So many books; so little time!

One more interesting landmark a few blocks away:

Stowe Tunnel

It needs no explanation, really. We didn’t have road tunnels where I grew up. When you have tunnels, you have a little bit of Moria, a little bit of the fantastic, in the most dreamless and urban neighborhood.

Finally, it’s the Ides of March. I don’t know if anyone’s keeping track, but that final ARC contest of mine closes at midnight tonight. If you’re playing, let me know your totals!

And may spring grace your surroundings!

20 Responses to Life Finds a Way

  1. Patrick says:

    Happy almost-spring, Fred! (By the way, Faith, Hope, and Love are daffodils. Crocus is a good guess, though, as they’re another early spring bloom.) Thanks for the great post and the great images … very eager to learn more about The House of the Worm!

    Reply
    • fsdthreshold says:

      Thanks, Patrick! Happy almost-spring to you, too! Happy Ides of March! There’s thunder growling around my apartment tonight, which gives the night a pleasant atmosphere, like the world is poised on tempestuous possibility.

      Daffodils! Thanks! I should have known! Those flowers immortalized by Wordsworth!

      When I was a kid, there was an early, early spring flower that my mom called “spring beauties” — I don’t know if that’s the official name or not. But they’d sprout up like a white dusting, like snow, usually in shaded areas of the yard under the great oaks. I remember how suddenly they’d appear! I always looked forward to those. I saw some this past spring in the park in my hometown. (So they still exist. Heh, heh!)

      I really need to get back into The House of the Worm! That’s a book I was born to write. I just need to shrug out of the noisome, tattered mantle of chaos and uncertainty and start living like a writer again. It would help so much if I could find a job and be (relatively) free of worry! Dark times these are . . .

      Reply
  3. Treefrog says:

    The pictures of the hills with still leafless trees (especially the third one) makes me think of the song “In the hall of the mountain king”, it always makes me think of trolls or something of the like coming out of the mountains at night.

    Reply
    • fsdthreshold says:

      Yes! My earliest memories of The Hobbit include those phrases and concepts such as “King Under the Mountain” and “the hall of the Mountain King” — it was like no other book I’d ever read!

      Yes, there must be trolls around here . . .

      Reply
  4. Hannah says:

    I don’t know what kind of flowers those are either, which is kind of silly since my Dad brought me those one time when I was really sick. After I got better, I planted them outside near our woods, and they’ve grown back every year since! When they bloom, I can see them right outside my bedroom window! They don’t stay up very long. Mine have already come up and went back down, but sometimes they bloom twice in a year, and the pollen’s just started! Ugh, I get such bad allergies:/
    But, my Mom thinks they’re daffodils/Johnquills.
    🙂

    Reply
    • fsdthreshold says:

      That’s a good story, Hannah! Thanks! Yes, Patrick and your mom have both identified the flowers as daffodils, so I think we’re safe believing that. 🙂 When I took that picture, there was a bee buzzing around them.

      Reply
  5. Hagiograph says:

    A couple years back we had new neighbors move in. I’m so bad with names that I consistently forgot their names, but ironically the man owned a landscaping business. He systematically went through and de-vegetated his entire yard. We could see in the back yard all the plantlife was just…gone. So I started, obviously, referring to the man and his wife as the “Saruman Family” since they seemed to be busy deforesting their land and were planning on paving over one big section of their front yard for parking their truck. Then they had a baby, so I called the baby their little Uruk Hai.

    Of course I never say these things to their face. Which is good….because finally late last year the Sarumans put in beautiful new sod in the front yard and turned their lawn instantly into a thing of midwestern beauty.

    I hope the Sarumans have a lot of money because keeping a lawn that green in San Diego takes a LOT of water and that is REALLY expensive. Which is why we finally broke down and went xeriscape in the front lawn with drought tolerant plants and rocks and (heaven help us) “fake turf” for our tiny tiny backyard.

    So I guess in reality _we_ are the real Sarumans.

    As for what the flowers are I believe technically speaking they are called “yellow flower thingies”. Scientists simply don’t know what they are. Treat them as a potential threat. You can kill them with Roundup if you want.

    Reply
    • Hagiograph says:

      I see the general consensus is now “Daffodils”. Still, you can’t be sure they aren’t carnivorous and EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Do NOT BE FOOLED.

      Get the Round up……GET THE ROUNDUP RIGHT NOW! Kill them! Kill them ALL!

      “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius!”

      Reply
  7. fsdthreshold says:

    So, Hagiograph, translate the Latin for us, if you will! I enjoyed the story about “the Sarumans.” You typically have interesting neighbors. When you were in high school, you had that neighbor Mike Z. whom you called “the Water-Lord,” because he was always watering his lawn.

    Reply
    • Hagiograph says:

      “Kill them all. The Lord will know his own”. Supposedly (apocryphally) said by a Papal legate during the Albigensian Crusade.

      Reply
      • fsdthreshold says:

        Thanks! Wow! At World Fantasy a couple years ago, I heard this as a criticism leveled against Tolkien: according to one panelist, Tolkien’s solution was “Kill them all.” Hmm. . . .

        Reply
      • Buurenaar says:

        Why not, eh, Hagiograph? Oh, also, I have found a publisher’s error in the Star Shard for you, at 58% on location 1760…they use “Cymbal” for “Cymbril” in the Kindle version. My English/Spanish major sense is tingling…must…find…virtual…red pen.

        Reply
  8. Buurenaar says:

    Got you another one. Location 2235 at 74%. Using “Lorie” for “Loric.” It happens, I suppose. However, I don’t have to like it.

    Reply
    • fsdthreshold says:

      Hmm. That’s not good! We went over and over the manuscript. I wonder if those same errors are in the print version. I don’t know exactly which line the e-book follows. I hope it springs from an ancestor before our final editing, so that those errors aren’t in the paper book. I seem to remember finding a “Cymbal” and a “Lorie” when I was correcting proofs, so maybe . . .

      Reply

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