Today I was thinking about my Grandfather. A few years ago my mom started writing her memoirs, and there was this chapter called "Wearing Orange." Grandfather was Scottish (Scotch-Irish) and also Dutch. When my mom was a kid, he would tell her to wear orange on St. Patrick's Day. Why? She never found out, and this fact really bothered me. I wanted resolution here. Why wear orange? I know the Irish flag has both green and orange in it. Is that the reason? Is it because he was also Dutch, and they're crazy about orange? When we were stationed in Belgium, we made the mistake of visiting Amsterdam on April 30th, the Queen's Birthday. And we were overwhelmed by reveling Dutch people wearing orange! Whatever the reason, I always think about this story on St. Patrick's Day, and make sure to wear a little orange. So yes, this is another California poppy. I promised myself I wouldn't photograph them again today, but then I remembered the orange thing so...tomorrow I'll try for a different color, and subject matter...
4 comments:
Hi Melissa. When I was young, I had a friend who was Irish and Italian. On St. Patrick's Day she always wore green and orange. She said the green was for her Irish side and the orange was for the Italian side.
How weird... my mom used to tell me to wear orange for our Northern Irish (and therefore protestant instead of catholic) heritage. It would seem that wearing the orange on St. Pat's day has it's roots in a few different cultures! (Side note: when I was a teen I went through this whole anti-establishment phase during which I wore black on St. P's day to protest patriarchal religion. Nobody got it, so I fell out of the habit of thinking about what I wore on Mar 17th at all!)
Well, we went to a St Pat's party and I wore some green and carried an orange purse. Little did I know that I was following a tradition. We grew up celebrating my mom's Irish heritage and always had green in abundance on that day.
Your macro shots are great! I love the impressionist view of the trees and the couture gown post is stunning.
Bises,
Genie
Amazing photograph and post.
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