Mono Monday : : Texture

As I prowled around looking for a picture for the Mono Monday challenge of 'texture' it occurred to me that everything has texture of some kind. The challenge was to find something that would make a nice picture. Ozzie's nose has an interesting texture, but a photo of it  was either boring or gross. My bathroom floor had an interesting texture after the family returned from their camping trip in the wilds of Sebastopol, and Maya elected to have a shower the moment she walked in the door! I'm not sure where she managed to carry that much sand, but I can see why she wanted a shower.

I couldn't resist telling her the story of our first (and last) family camping trip when I was a kid. It ended prematurely after one night in a tilting tent in a crowded campground. We repaired to a motel in Lone Pine, California where my brother, age five, took seven showers! I became an avid backpacker and camper later in life, but my brother has never been a fan.

The bouquet of dahlias and zinnias by the front door had a wonderful texture, but I couldn't bring myself to turn its
wonderful colors to mono, The texture of my Pilates mat in class this morning is wonderfully tactile, but doesn't photograph well, especially as it is black. If only the fabulous bakery next door was open I'm sure I could have gotten some good photos of the beautiful loaves of bread they make, but they aren't open on Monday.

I cast my critical eye over the bookshelves above my desk. They have filled up not only with books, but with cups full of paintbrushes, pencils and pens, tubes of watercolor paint, a vase of dried roses, photographs, little hand woven baskets from California Pomo Indians, South Africa and Indonesia. A collection of leaves, seeds, grasses, shells, a deer vertebra and a dried butterfly is full of texture, but a little chaotic for a photo.

In the end I decided on the collection of bird feathers I have picked up around the place and stuck into a tiny Bernard Leach vase. That brought back memories of a trip to Cornwall and Devon with my parents in 1973, and a National Trust property whose grounds were a sea of blooming daffodils. My father had a heart attack at a hotel in London as they prepared to fly back to the United States after that trip. Instead, he spent some  weeks at University College Hospital in London and then in a company flat arranged by OilMan. 

As I write this, I wonder...can memories be said to have texture too?