megan kimble

The saguaros are blooming!

They bloomed all at once, their tight flower buds emerging like a breakout on the forehead of a pubescent teenager. Indeed, they are a pimply sort of flower, taut green knobs that explode in a flare of white petals. Accustomed to the smooth crest of the easily-sketched saguaro shape, these protrusions are arresting, comical—and they are everywhere, crowning the tops every parking-lot saguaro, roadside stand, or, in my case, sentinel of a landscaped courtyard.

Actually, now that I begin to look, I see that all the cacti are blooming. My delight in the blooming cacti is an embarrassing yet unavoidable consequence of my delight in all things southwestern, from the kitschy to the cliché. Succulents bloom—the ocotillo in quiet red flares, the prickly pear in waxy yellow fists—and spring folds into summer, into the wavering heat of morning that lingers until the end of dusk. A second semester rolls to a close and suddenly it is summer in another sense. The academic term ends, I am released to write on my own time—time which has become something much more lolling. Meandering among bike rides, blooms, and quiet mornings.

Not a catalog, but a…

I just read The Orchid Thief. Susan Orlean—who I am now following on Twitter and who says things such as “How do seasick-prone people live in Venice, I wonder?”—manages to be funny without losing her depth, and this is something I strive to be. She describes orchids, those over-sexualized, over-idealized flowers, in amazing ways that are not sexual or idealized. I read The Orchid Thief for my plant class, and in this class we had an activitiy: describe an orchid in a way that is not sexual.

I can’t see anything in this orchid now except my angry little man. He frowns over my kitchen now, frustrated to be pegged to the refrigerator by a flimsy magnet. He’s on my fridge to remind me to find the funny—the frowning little man with a flamboyant hat—in otherwise darkly bulbous blossoms.

From Susan:

The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that is whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possiblity. If I had been an orchid hunter I wouldn’t have seen this space as sad-making and vacant–I think I would have seen it as acres of opportunity where the things I loved where waiting to be found.

spring mail from Mom

Enjoy your spring break
Indulge in daffodils and
strawberries
(organic of course)!

We/I love you.

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spring email

Don’t forget to set your clocks for the upcoming Spring Equinox — 2012 Mar 19 10:14 PM PDT

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spring gchat

‪Katie‬: it is snowing
ugh
9:37 AM
‪me‬: whaaaat
haha
snowing?!
9:38 AM
‪Katie‬: um yes
damn it
where is sprrrinnng
‪me‬: in tucson
on break
come back
9:42 AM
‪Katie‬: aww
9:43 AM
i want to
to your little casita
10:47 AM
Katie: o i meant to tell you
‪me‬: yes
‪Katie‬: in experimenting with banana toast
i added a little raspberry jam
10:48 AM
SO YUMMY
‪me‬: ooo
yumm