My Photo Journal: Fluid Reality (1)

If nothing lasted and the world did not exist,
all that meant was that reality was not fixed.
The illusion she lived in was fluid and mutable,
and could be easily altered by someone willing to rewrite the script of reality.
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school.
They don't teach you how to love somebody.
They don't teach you how to be famous.
They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor.
They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer.
They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind.
They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying.
They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

Stormy clouds gathering above red roof tiles.
Photo © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Printable Vintage Art: Portrait of a Young Woman Sitting Outdoors by Julie Volpelière

Portrait of a young woman sitting outdoors, holding a bouquet of flowers, 1822
by Julie Volpelière (1780–1842)

She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Some women feel the need to act like they're never scared, needy or hurt; like they're as hardened as a man. I think that's dishonest. It's ok to feel delicate sometimes. Real beauty is in the fragility of your petals. A rose that never wilts isn't a rose at all.
― Crystal Woods, Write Like No One is Reading

If you like, you can download my digitally enhanced version of the painting above as a high-res, printable 4” x 5” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

Spring drew on...and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Photo © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Maria Luisa of Parma by Anton Raphael Mengs

A portrait painting of Maria Luisa of Parma in a garden setting, holding a pair of dahlia-like flowers. Her magnificent court gown is richly adorned with decorative plants and flowers. This fine artwork was executed by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–1779) around 1765. Maria Luisa of Parma (Luisa Maria Teresa Anna; 9 December 1751 – 2 January 1819) was, by marriage to King Charles IV of Spain, Queen of Spain from 1788 to 1808 leading up to the Peninsular War. Maria Luisa was interested in music and art, and known as a protector of artists, most notably Francisco Goya. [Source: Wikipedia]

If you like, you can download my digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above) as a high-res, printable 8” x 11” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

Here is a photo of Dahlia ‘Zorro’ growing in my garden from the 2025 season. While I planted nine varieties of these powerhouse tubers today for the 2026 season, none of them included Zorro, unfortunately. I decided I wanted to try ball/pom-pom dahlias this season and due to budget and lack of space, I had to sacrifice getting Zorro. If the pom-pom dahlias end up being underwhelming, I will go back to my razzle-dazzle dinner-plate dahlias next year!
Photo © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.