How Do You Get to Wonderland?
They say God used up all the glitter in the craft closet the day passionflowers were created. My daughters and I discovered them years ago. There’s a story about them in my book, Food for My Daughters. They grow wild, as do I. I call them fancy flowers.
As if their Dr. Seussian beauty is not enough, the passionflower vine is the sole host plant for Gulf fritillary butterflies, which are orange with three white polka dots on each wing. And yet, there’s more! Supposedly, once you taste the ripe fruit of the passionflower (called a maypop), you will crave it the rest of your life.
I found a wonderland of blooming passionflowers two nights ago, for the first time this year, when I rode my bike up to see the sunset under the power lines, as has become my habit. Every year my city tries to kill the wild that grows there, and every year they fail. As they do with me as well.
And so it goes. And so it grows.
The photo at the top of this post will kick off the 3rd issue of my monthly newsletter, BikeBloom (coming soon). You can read the first two issues: Pick Buttercups and Spill Open. Here’s the BikeBloom website, if interested. Stay tuned: BIG things are in the works for 2023.
Find your own passion on the edges of nature.
In the meantime, you may enjoy this little TikTok:
