Hydrangea Watercolor Haiku

Whenever I see a hydrangea, I think of two people. The first is my late father, who in his waning days after a lifetime of calling it a hydrangea, called it a hydranjula. Someone had brought one to the hospital, and he urged me to “take that hydranjula” home with me. Either he was used to the constant room changes or he knew his days were quickly coming to an end. I took the flower.

The second is Missy, my childhood friend who gave me a sprig of a hydrangea she’d been rooting. I transplanted it to our farmland home in middle Georgia from the island where we grew up riding bikes all over the place before it became a tourist destination. It must have wanted to be a country hydrangea, living in a quieter, less subtropical place. It’s thriving, despite my neglect of it. These are the kinds of plants I need. The kind I can plant, water, and forget – – and let nature do the rest until time for pruning.

When I saw the blank watercolor page with its step-by-step paint-on-page directions, I had no idea how to create color within color until I learned a little about wet on wet versus wet on dry painting. When a page is wet, the colors bleed together in a way that painting colors on dry pages doesn’t. I can’t think of a better flower choice to learn about wet on wet than a hydrangea, with its blending pop of colors that change based on the pH of the soil. And for once, I had a leaf actually turn out the way it’s supposed to look. I couldn’t have done that when I started, so I am learning a little as I go. I prefer slow, unhurried learning – – and ironically, it’s a lot like watercolor painting where you build layer on layer. I was never a fast learner, but once I finally get it, I’ve got a grasp.

Happy Sunday! Tomorrow, I’ll share our first experience boondocking in a Harvest Hosts site. If you’ve never heard of Harvest Hosts, it’s an innovative way to travel like a complete and total hippie – – which is my ultimate goal for the next chapter of my life. I want to be a hydranjula-painting traveling haiku-writing hippie, and I’ll show you the boondocking part of what that looks like tomorrow.

Hydrangea