The Understated Vine

"Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to they stronger state, 
Makes me with they strength to communicate."
– William Shakespeare

I'm celebrating vines today because I wanted to celebrate something and when I looked out my bedroom window this morning I discovered some vines had grown up the outside of the screen. And like the old tribes who named their babies after the first thing they saw when they walked out of the teepee after the birth, I said to myself, "Right, vines it is!"

Vines are a funny thing. They can't grow up (or out) unless they cling to things because their woody stems aren't strong enough to support their leaves. But in doing so they give us grapes, pumpkins, melons, peas and beans. So you can't really blame them for clinging on. It takes a special fixed object to allow them to do so.

On an exterior wall they cover a bad paint job, on a garden fence they drape nicely in a decorative fashion. And where would Tarzan have been without vines to swing on? Vines have been used for centuries in the creation of fiber art - particularly basketry and clothing. Some of the oldest archeological sites in southeast Asia include kudzu fiber clothing and basketry. Kudzu, a type of vine from southeast China and Japan, where it is cooked and eaten, is said to have medicinal properties that has shown promise for treating Alzheimers disease and is prescribed as a remedy for alcoholism and hangover in China. They grow quickly and have shown to be an effective defense against soil erosion in the deforested section of the central Amazon Basin in Brazil.

Vines are not the only things that cling, of course. Static clings to clothes, a child clings to their mother when they're afraid, fleas cling to cats, Linus clings to his blanket and we cling to hope that things will turn out for the better.

And they do, when we find things to celebrate.