A Butterfly in Spring and Gillette's Ode to Holmes

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 "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 1535 March 1, 2018
Prompt: "The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough." Rabindranath Tagore Write about butterflies and spring.

Yesterday afternoon brought sunshine and the trill of spring birds. Today, in my fickle part of the world, these balmy temps will give way to a Nor'easter bringing rain and snow. As New Englanders, we have all grown accustomed to a cautious optimism when it comes to the arrival of Spring. I found myself believing for a few short hours, that Winter had turned the corner. I half expected to see the fresh green points of daffodils breaking through in the yard and even checked for buds on my early blooming lilac. The latest news report sobered me quickly. The weather man somberly presenting a map in which my town sat squarely in the wide blue swath indicating 3-6 inches of snow. This has little to do with the Tagore's quote of course...but butterflies always bring Spring to mind and here, we are all very preoccupied with that particular season.

I think the sentiment behind Tagore's words are that the life of the butterfly might be brief but it is full. After all, how many creatures get to experience a transformation that allows them to life two lives to fruition, both terrestrial and aerial? A caterpillar toils about for the first of its life, grounded and plodding. Then, then brilliant design of its life cycle allows it to emerge, reborn with wings. The butterfly's world is suddenly all air currents and fragrant blooms. It is granted a new life, one that is fleeting but free. Last year my daughter and I watched a painted lady butterfly float slowly to the ground. My daughter gently picked it up, marveling that it has just died there in our yard, almost the moment it's body made contact with the earth again. I'm sure the butterfly lives every moment silhouetted against the sky, grateful for its beautiful and brief existence.

Image from Wikipedia

"Blogging Circle of Friends"
DAY 1932 March 1, 2018
On this day 1890 1st US edition of Sherlock Holmes (Study in Scarlet) was published. How do you think like Sherlock Holmes?

I would have to admit that I have much more in common with Carroll's Alice than Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. The fictional detective was crafted with an almost unnatural intelligence and intuition. He also used morphine and cocaine, to the extent that he has been repeated portrayed as an drug addict. The traits certainly make him an interesting, if unrelatable character for me.

Oddly enough, my state has a strange connection to Sherlock Holmes. William Gillette was an actor who realized considerable fame for playing Sherlock Holmes on the stage and in early silent films. In 1914, Gillette began construction on what would later become Gillette's Castle along the Connecticut River. It is an odd structure that I've always thought resembles a sand castle melting under an incoming tide. The grounds are impressive however with trails that meander through the woods and often break into clearings with amazing views of the river valley. It is a state park now and you can tour the castle and its trails almost year round. There are references to Sherlock Holmes all around the property, including the sign out front that bears a typical likeness to the pipe-smoking investigator.

Image from Wikipedia

Grammar Rules in Blogging and Sounds of Spring

Blogging Circle of Friends
Winter and summer are two seasons that have songs clearly associated with the time period. But are there any songs that remind you of spring? Share with us a song with a YouTube link in your blog.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qVPNONdF58

I had to think about this for a minute...Spring is one of the lesser acknowledged seasons lyrically I think. For me, Blind Melon's "No Rain" is one song that always makes me think of that season. It is most likely due to the references of rain and puddles, which I always associate with Spring. It may also be the images in the video of the band members playing on green, sunlight hillsides. And if you were alive in the 90's, who among us doesn't hear the riffs and think, "dancing bumblebee girl"? The whole thing is catchy and breezy. That would be my pick for Spring song.


"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 745 March 22, 2016
Prompt: Rabindranath Tagore said in Sadhana, “When we come to literature, we find that, though it conforms to the rules of grammar, it is yet a thing of joy; it is freedom itself.” How much do you think literature, with fiction or poetry, should stick to the rules of grammar? Or should it, at all?

This is a tough one. I tend to bend the rules of grammar a lot in my blogs and free writing but I really polish the heck out of anything I'm sending out to publish. I think when you are writing for an audience, you have to respect the rules of grammar as much as you can without losing your creativity and artistic edge. I would hate for a reader to miss something important about a piece because they are tripped up by bad grammar and mistakes. I don't write poetry but I imagine those rules must be more relaxed. Artists been the rules all the time with lyrics, which are basically a form of poetry, as a method for getting a song to work well. I think it ultimately it depends on what you are writing. I think literature demands a higher standard whereas poetry and blogs should be allowed some leeway in the interest of keeping it authentic. Blogging for me is a very raw, real time activity designed to keep my creativity flowing and I can't worry to much about being grammatically correct. I do spell check my entries though. I think writers should respect the words they work with and misspelling is an unnecessary but using extra commas (I do that A LOT) and mixing tense or using different syntax to convey emotions and otherwise taking grammatical liberties is just fine when blogging or free form writing. At least I feel that way.