Moleskin Flower Pressing

Almost as soon as I heard we were going to be using moleskins as a poetry/art collection in the Dickinson style, I realized I needed to learn how to press flowers. I decided to only use wildflowers that emerged as the spring began to reveal itself, down here in Texas. There are a few things I've taken notice of through this process of collection and preservation: almost every wildflower in my area is purple with the exception of one little yellow flower that I don't know the name of, the best places to look for flowers is unkempt lawns and areas of the neighborhood that seem to be most overlooked; once picked, flowers begin to droop surprisingly fast so they're better collected on the way home.

The process of flower pressing is not too complicated (and I encourage everyone to try as I've had a few really beautiful attempts), but it does involve leaving the journal undisturbed for at least 5 day increments. This became a new way for me to measure time outside of a clock (as in "I tie my Hat - I crease my Shawl -"). I could only add new findings every five days, or risk the last week's work.

This practice of picking many of the emerging flowers I saw and pressing them into the pages of a book, to be hidden for days on end struck me most particularly in relation to "I dreaded that first Robin, so," (this is the poem written on the page). I was taking up all the signals of spring and tucking them away, out of sight, almost in denial. Springtime is such an odd concept at a time like this. We're inside even more now than during a Wellesley winter. Though I was not intentionally rioting against spring, I was ending a cycle of change. Once pressed, the flowers wouldn't grow or lose their color for quite a while. They remain static and confined, a bit like us right now.