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Its scientific name is Hemerocallis fulva, but most of the old people I grew up around called them outhouse lilies or ditch lilies. But my grandmother Dorothy thought that was common and just called them daylilies, and they were her favorite flower. There was a long swath of them that grew behind her house, on the border that separated the backyard from the wild thicket behind it. And every summer of my childhood, from about mid-May until we went back to school, the border would have brilliant swaths of orange flowers.

They are not sophisticated plants. I see them in old neglected cemeteries, meaning these are plants even dead people can grow. I’m told that every single part of the plant is edible, and in their native Asia, they are a delicacy, but my people didn’t know anything about that. They just thought they were pretty.

Her birthday was on June the 5th, and by then, all the daylilies were in full bloom. You could look out her bedroom window and see them, waving in the breeze. I was born on her birthday, and often had birthday parties in that backyard, so her and my birthday and those flowers are all intertwined in my head.

They are a good example of what some folks call pass-along-plants, which are just plants that are so un-finicky that they are easy to share with your neighbors. They are easily divided, and grow rapidly, so in a few years, you will have enough to share with your neighbors, or to put elsewhere in your garden. That’s what Dorothy did, all those years ago. And when, long after she was dead and I had moved back to Mississippi after living elsewhere for more than 20 years, it’s what I did, taking some from the long-neglected border behind the old home site and transplanted them to the yard at my new house.

It’s now the middle of May, and they are beginning to bloom, reminding me that the kids are getting out of school and my birthday is coming up, and for the next few months, every day when I walk in my yard, I will be reminded of Dorothy and her love for me.

Not bad for something common people would call a ditch lily.

Five Beautiful Things

If you are, like me, someone who grew up playing the board game Mousetrap, and are further fascinated by Rube Goldberg-esque devices (in the UK, think Heath Robinson), you might find this web-based game fascinating and slightly addictive. I think the best way to enjoy it is to click on things and figure it out, but if you are not that sort of person, there is an explainer page here.

The actor Dennis Hopper - star of Easy Rider and icon of the counterculture - was also a hell of a photographer.​

It’s hard to sum up Kevin Kelly with a few words. At 73, he’s a futurist, a technologist, a diy’r and just an all around interesting guy. He was one of the founders of Wired magazine, and has what seems like endless curiosity. He recently put together a list of 101 pieces of advice that is just gold. If you like this sort of thing, he recently published Excellent Advice For Living, which is filled with similar bite-sized bits of wisdom.

They have unearthed new paintings at Pompei. A thing this article does well, that I seldom see addressed, is the discussion of class distinctions in the ancient city.

The first time I saw this poem, it gutted me. It still does:

The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

Check this out

​Instructions on how to turn off the AI results in your Google search results. I did this, and it’s a game changer.

I love birds, but I’m not a “birder”. At least, I don’t think I am. But I love how they see the world.​

Thank you

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Y’all are the best.

HH