i just talked to betty davis. she lives at magnolia care center. by the by, i've been meaning to write about the magnolia trees. growing up i thought magnolias were small corner trees, because we had young ones planted around our swimming pool. pretty polite white buds tucked between sturdy (robust) dark green leaves, opening into creamy palm-size flowers. not so. the ones here are jungle trees. big thick trunks, sometimes splitting at the base into two or three, almost hidden by the meandering branches that grow all the way to the ground. they loom upward without the clear perspective of most tall trees--they're lumbering, and a word i'd have to make up, kind of like cascading but not so sheer and graceful. in stillness they bumpily burpupily fall through the air. no symmetry. gene expression gone crazy. huge shiny shiny leaves coming out everywhere with massive white flowers you could burrow your head into, but you wouldn't want to get that close because they're disconcerting--the white petals are solid but they have no texture, no visible veins, like the milky white stuff in the stems of ivy, suspended in petal shapes.
anyways, back to betty.
posted by Liza 30.6.03