Poetic litter? Making a statement? OR fact-checking my graffiti with punctuation

Wasting away again in blogger fact-check land.  Searching for my lost file of art shows.  I could have sworn I saw Millais' "Ophelia" at the National Gallery of Art on my very first trip to D.C. in 1986. This is not a Jimmy Buffett problem.  But it's my own damn fault.  Maybe it was the 1997 trip. I know I walked out of the Pre-Raphaelite exhibit and sat in the East Garden Court stunned at the beauty of the art.

My first reaction to the white flowers at the water line  of the Oak Point lake was not awe at the beauty.  It looked like litter to me.  The long-stemmed roses, lilies, hydrangeas, daisies, and spider mums were evenly spaced, not a bouquet that had floated away.  Placed, not strewn. Wedding?  Funeral?  Pledging ceremony?

A fisherman pondering the flowers asked me, "Do you think someone was making a statement?"  It dawned on me that the couple walking up the trail to the parking lot as I was starting down had seemed very relieved to tell each other, "Well, that's done."  It was done.  But what was it? The rest of the park visitors were left to wonder. Ophelia didn't mention these particular flowers, but they seem to be for remembrance.

Driving out to Oak Point Nature Preserve for my desperately-needed mental health walk, I heard  an NPR review of the new movie, "Contagion" on the radio:


When Elliott Gould, in a cameo as a lone-wolf scientist, launches a zinger at Law -- "Blogging isn't journalism! It's graffiti with punctuation!"


Maybe, but I do try to fact-check!


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder