The Story of a Rose on Both Sides of the Ocean

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

-Shakespeare

About six years ago, anticipating a roadtrip vacation to Maine from our home in Cincinnati, I saved up many pennies and bought my first SLR camera. (For those who don't know SLR, it means Single Lens Reflex, which means what the photographer sees behind the lens is also the same image captured by the camera, with no delay. Or the big kind with detachable lenses...) This SLR was nothing fancy--actually I even bought at Target, but I squeaked by with enough money leftover to buy a decent macro lens to attach to it. I had always dreamed of a having camera to capture what I saw, and the trip to Maine was the perfect opportunity to give more serious photography a try.

The weather in Maine couldn't have been better the week we were there-- brilliant skies, azure sea pounding up against beaten rocks, whitewashed lighthouses sparkling in the sun. This photo of Portland Head Light is one of my first favorites.

Portland Head Light, Portland, Maine

One misty morning, I captured a photograph of the intensely fragrant Rugosa roses which thrive amongst the Seaside rocks.

Coastal Maine Rugosa Rose

Ever since that photograph and that trip, I have become captivated with photography and the ability to capture the world that I see, to share. And also, I became a fan of the resilient roses doused in heady fragrance, the Rugosas.

A Rugosa, just on the other side of our Prague fence

Since moving to Prague, Czech Republic, last summer, I noticed many unruly roses growing wild in the vacant land surrounding our home. And this week, I discovered just what those roses are: Rugosas. Even now as I type, windows and doors wide open (as the air-conditioner-less Europeans do) I can smell the lusty fragrance lingering on the breeze, from the Rugosas next door.

Czech Rugosa Rose

Though I also enjoy cultivated roses, the finicky delicate ones which unfurl in passionate spirals, I must admit to my hope to be like the Rugosas-- those who can bloom and thrive despite difficult growing conditions, on both sides of the Ocean ...

By the way ... my website has just emerged from a redesign and updating. I'd love to have you stop by, and would also love to hear what you think. http://www.jenniferlynking.com/  Thanks!

Starting the Conversation: What plant / flower do you appreciate for its durable disposition? Do you have a favorite "difficult to grow" flower?

Finding Inspiration

"If we live to be 100 years old, we will have only experienced Spring 100 times” … if we’re paying attention.  –unknown

Sometimes, life takes our breath away.

Lupine field, Somes Sound, Maine

One July, while camping at Acadia National Park in Maine, I stood in silent wonder at the unexpected and magnificent beauty of a vast field of lupine edging up to Somes Sound. Whether it was the crashing of the ocean along the rocks bordering the lupine, the Bald Eagle circling above me, or the veil of fog filtering the summer sun, I don’t know, but somehow the experience impacted me. Profoundly.

Frequently, I’m asked where I find inspiration for my writing, my painting, and my work. But the truth is I don’t often feel at a loss for inspiration. Life has kept me quite filled with a well from which to work, from which to tap to create, and to keep my mind fascinated with the beauty which can be found in our world. I am deeply grateful.

Have you ever had an experience that changes you? The way you see things? The way the world looks afterward? I love how this phenomenon is described in this great post by Michael Hyatt, on the healing power of beauty and art and an experience that changed him for better.

I once heard the definition of an artist as “a collector of experience.” Art then might be defined as the application of a collection of experience. Run-of-the-mill art might happen as a result of a collection of a lifetime of contained non-risky experiences. Whereas broad-sweeping art may be created from a lifetime’s worth of stretching—of opening ourselves to the wide collection of experience available in everyday living.

In my mind, inspiration comes quietly, in the serenity of a sherbet-colored sunrise, the sharing of stories over dinner, the crackling warmth of a fire, the bells pealing from a church belfry, or the bursting color of Spring—experiencing it all as if for the first time.

my daily inspiration, the Prague Castle

Maybe this week, dare to do something new, to go somewhere you’ve not previously gone, to sit and share and listen to the life of friend. Just for the fun of it—just for the new experience, try driving a new road, sitting at a different table at a restaurant, reading a new book, or trying out a new food. Perhaps when life takes our breath away, we can take in a fresh beauty, and can remember He made it all just for you, and me.

I think as we collect experience we are further inspired for our art and for creativity. But we also may be furthered as human beings to love more deeply and to live more richly, and to express our life and gratitude as its own work of art.

Starting the conversation: What inspires you? Can you remember a time when life changed, inexplicably, and the experience took your breath away?

A More Beautiful Place

A few years ago, we enjoyed a summer vacation in Maine, the camping kind involving a tent and hiking boots. Since it was not the first time we’d traveled around Maine, we had an idea of what to look forward to—the rocky coastline, the sleepy clapboard villages, the saltsprayed restaurants serving mouthwatering blueberry pie and to-die-for lobster, the lighthouses marking way to safe harbors, the wildlife and wildflowers and pristine wilderness. Maine has a way of stealing a heart, or at least capturing the wild at heart. And so, we ventured back to Maine for another summer vacation not knowing we were in for more than we had imagined.

That summer, not only did we see a Bald Eagle and a moose in action close range, but we again explored the majestic Acadia National Park and dug up even more hidden treasures. There, beside a tiny village on Somes Sound, we happened upon a breathtaking field of lupine. For moments standing in the lupine meadow, I realized that the natural beauty would stay with me forever. The photographs I took (including the one above) stand to remind me of that day.

Afterward, a dear Boston friend gave us a remarkable picture book entitled Miss Rumphius, written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney, which won the American Book Award. The story contained within the book, with its gentle images and serene cadence, is hauntingly beautiful, another reminder for me of the lupine meadow.

In the book, Alice, the main character, sits on the knee of her grandfather, who tells her of three things she must do in her life: travel to faraway places, live beside the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful. As a result, Alice Rumphius makes her way through life … and eventually discovers her own way of making the world more beautiful. Full circle in the end, as Miss Alice Rumphius, now old, tells her young niece of the three things, they look out on the surrounding Maine hills covered with lupine meadows, all which started with a single seed scattered by Miss Rumphius.

It is amazing to imagine, with a world full of people rife with gifts to share that life would be much richer if we were to open up our lives to impacting the world for good. I’m perpetually inspired by World Vision (http://www.worldvision.org/) and their work on behalf of the extreme poor in the world, and more recently by Michael Hyatt (http://michaelhyatt.com/) and his traveling companions just arriving back from a trip to Ethiopia. Certainly traveling to faraway places has a way of opening our minds to more than just ourselves and our hearts to helping others. I find vacations by the sea to be unsurpassed, and would love to someday live with the waves crashing at my doorstep. But truly, finding our unique place in the world, finding the place where we can share our lives and experiences and gifts with the world around us, opening our minds by experiencing faraway places (whether it is around the corner or around the world), that is the place I think where we begin to make the world more beautiful, the sum of all three, the point, I think, of Miss Rumphius. Perhaps by offering our lives to help others, we can truly make the world more beautiful. In my mind, nothing can be more significant and worthwhile than that …

… It all begins with one small seed.