Greetings from Brookside Gardens

Saturday was a magnificent 75-degree day -- there was rain forecast for the late afternoon and evening, but if any fell, I never saw it. We did a bunch of chores in the morning, watched some basketball, then we had buttermilk pancakes and eggs, and then we went to Brookside Gardens, which is covered in daffodils and also has lots of lenten roses, asters, aconite, hyacinths, and early magnolias and cherry blossoms. There were also dozens of turtles, a few frogs, and lots of courting geese, plus a couple of hooded mergansers. 

 

We had "ham" and cheese pie for dinner, then we watched Nightmare Alley, which is very well directed and mostly well acted, though it has some of my issues with older film noir (women often plot devices instead of full characters) and newer film noir (graphic violence). Why does Cate Blanchett get stuck playing so many characters whose backstories are only implied? She's great, but the way Christine Baranski is great in The Gilded Age, a.k.a. she only gets to be great doing one single thing. 

I had a really nice thing happen. In my scanning and sorting of old letters, I got to revisit a lot of my interests and people I met because of them. During the mid '00s, because of an essay on my web page, I got a note from the grandniece of the woman about whom I wrote my undergrad honors thesis: Margaret Anderson, founder of The Little Review. We corresponded briefly, and I saved her letters, yet I managed to forget her name. 

Meanwhile, I continued to collect Tarot decks, something I've done since college. At some point in the mid '10s, I discovered an artist named Holly Sierra, whose work I absolutely loved. She is best known for The Chrysalis Tarot and she has painted many of my favorite things: goddesses, flowers, Celtic symbols, magical women. My favorite of all her paintings is of the Chalice Well; I've had a print of that over my desk for years. 

A few days ago, I was moving some scans of letters from Wendy Weinberg, the wonderful documentary filmmaker who was nominated for an Academy Award for her short film about Margaret Anderson, with whom I had shared some research. In a folder of letters about The Little Review, the name "Holly Sierra" jumped out at me. Of course I clicked on it, and discovered that that was the name of Margaret's grandniece who'd written to me all those years ago. 

Not believing in coincidence, I sent a note to the artist Holly Sierra, and of course it turned out that they're the same person! We have had a lovely correspondence about the Chalice Well and other magical places, and I was reminded that I'd meant to order some greeting cards from her to send to other friends with the same interests. Today I got a package including not only the cards, but extra goodies including an autographed copy of the Chrysalis Tarot guidebook and a copy of a note Margaret Anderson wrote to her sister, who was Holly's grandmother. I am floored by this generosity!