Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

A writer takes a minute for a closer look

recent posts

  • Delicate strong

    Last summer, I took a stem cutting from a neighbor’s beautiful climbing white rose, dipped the stem in rooting powder, stuck it in a little soil in a clear plastic takeout container, watered it, put the lid on (key to maintaining the moist environment starts need) and set it in a window.

    It grew roots and added leaves and in about two months, I had a viable little rose start. I put it in this blue pot, set it out on the deck, then forgot about it and it nearly died from lack of watering. But didn’t quite die. I cut off all the withered parts and it grew up again.

    Then winter arrived and my attention turned indoors. When the spate of hard freezes hit us last month, I moved the more delicate potted plants from the deck into the garage, including this rose. There had already been a few hard freezes, hard enough to crack the side of this pot (designed for indoor, not outdoor use). But this delicate looking guy turns out to be strong.

    There’s a great article about how some plants survive hard freezes on the United States Botanical Garden website. (Side note: Anybody visiting Washington D.C. should visit the botanical garden. It’s a lovely oasis on the capital grounds to decompress after a day of gawking at the wonders of DC).

    I love that this plant survived my early neglect and winter freezes. Here’s to things that survive despite all odds.

  • I support Ukraine

    I believe in support for Ukraine. I trust President Volodymyr Zelensky and support his leadership of his country. I stand against Russia’s invasion. I stand against Putin.

    It’s not enough for me to post a flag and express a sentiment on my blog. If anyone has ideas about how to help muster visual global support for Ukraine, I am all in. If there are 10 friends willing to go to DC and stand in front of the White House with a Ukrainian flag every day for a week, I am all in. If we started, I think others might join us. But even if nobody joined us, I would still do it. I just can’t sit around anymore.

  • More from a master

    Yesterday, my blog delved into the mysteries of character building in a novel. I went, as I often do to E.M. Forster, who describes it so well in “Aspects of the Novel,” a book published in 1927. My beat-up copy was published in 1955. I think I found it at a used bookstore in the mid ’80s. I have a newer edition (it’s still in publication almost 100 years after its first printing) but it doesn’t have all my notes and underlines, so I somehow go back to this beat-up copy.

    I really can’t open it even just to pull one little quote out without getting sucked in by his humor and his wisdom. So a few more words from Forster, these about the importance of story:

    We are all like Scheherazade’s husband, in that we want to know what happens next. That is universal and that is why the backbone of a novel has to be a story. … Story can only have one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. And conversely it can only have one fault: that of making the audience not want to know what happens next. These are the only two criticisms that can be made on the story … It is the lowest and simplest of literary organisms. Yet it is the highest factor common to all the very complicated organisms known as novels.