{"id":2092,"date":"2014-09-14T18:52:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T22:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=2092"},"modified":"2014-09-14T18:52:57","modified_gmt":"2014-09-14T22:52:57","slug":"the-last-of-the-calla-lilies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2014\/09\/14\/the-last-of-the-calla-lilies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last of the Calla Lilies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Calla<\/a><\/p>\n

But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.\u201d \u2015 Stephen King<\/p>\n

I confess I\u2019m not a summer person, so while everyone is lamenting the shorter days and the snap in the air I love September.\u00a0 It gives me a minute to get back to my garden after the screaming hot days of summer (although this year was not so bad) where you can\u2019t prune or weed or plant or harvest.\u00a0 Even though September begins the process of putting the garden to bed I still love it.\u00a0 I begin with the Calla Lilies that are bent over and getting dirty but still producing those magnificent funnel shaped spathe bract.\u00a0 Yes that\u2019s what you call it, you can\u2019t call it a petal you can call it a type of leaf.\u00a0 As the leaves unfurl some of them become full on leaves and some bring this beautiful funnel enclosing a spike in its center.\u00a0 In the spring the funnel will turn a velvety white but in the fall they remain the color of the leaves.<\/p>\n

\"Calla<\/a><\/p>\n

There is so much folklore wrapped around the Calla Lily.\u00a0 The phallic spike lends itself to spells and sorcery both to increase male sex drive and lessen male sex drive, to aid against impotency and to cause impotence, there is also a spell to keep him faithful.\u00a0 The word Calla is Greek for magnificent beauty and so the flower has come to be associated with the Virgin Mary and purity.\u00a0 This combination of attributes has made the Calla Lily a popular wedding flower representing the idealized virginity of the bride and the fertile future of the couple. \u00a0It is also a prominent funeral flower usually for those who may have died before their time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower\u2014suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.\u201d <\/strong> \u2015 Katharine Hepburn, Stage Door<\/p>\n

\"Calla<\/a><\/p>\n

And so it\u2019s fitting that the Calla Lily in my garden is one of the first to appear in the spring and the one in the fall to \u201ckick summer out on its treacherous ass. \u201c\u00a0 Stephen King is right, once the Calla\u2019s no longer whiten and begin to fall over the nostalgia and the stories seem to follow.\u00a0 We are forced inside into comfortable chairs.\u00a0 Just this morning we were reminiscing about Sol and Lena, former neighbors that I remember from fifty years ago. I remember them as vividly today as I did then.\u00a0 They have become a part of my childhood that is dear to me.\u00a0 I would spend hours at the back of their wrap around front porch playing with the doll house that Sol made.\u00a0 The furniture was made of spools and match boxes and match sticks and scraps of fabric and lace and buttons.\u00a0 Their house was filled with pictures in silver frames that were always polished.\u00a0 These were the people they had lost, these were the talismans of their daily life to touch the frames and polish them kept them connected. \u00a0I have always said that someday I would name a set of dogs after them; so far I have my Lina.\u00a0 There is still time to honor Sol.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t miss the summer, I never do.\u00a0 I believe Wallace Stegner when he muses, \u00a0\u201cThat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many people believe that September is really the New Year.\u00a0 There are renewed resolutions, fall cleaning for the predicted days inside to come, and the anticipation of filling the house with the smells of signature dishes.\u00a0 September is one of my favorite months full of so much reminiscing and renewal and the grass is still green<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To enjoy more of the last of the Calla Lilies visit the Ordinary Legacy Facebook page<\/a>, feel free to Like us too.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[466,6],"tags":[504,506,507,505,508],"class_list":["post-2092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-its-a-legacy-thing","category-pause-points","tag-calla-lilies","tag-putting-the-garden-to-bed","tag-remembering","tag-september","tag-sol-and-lena"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-xK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}