Clinging to life

Defiant
London, ON
January 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I've been shooting (let's clarify: photos) long enough that certain trends have become obvious. Family, dog, car, bike, and technology are the ones that jump to the front. Ivy, though, kinda makes me scratch my head. What is it about ivy that stops me dead in my tracks?

Honestly, I have no idea. About ivy, or anything else that makes me freaking tick. To wit: Devo's "Jimmy's in a Wheelchair" pops into my head with alarming frequency. I can't explain why, much to my poor wife's consternation.

But I digress. Back to ivy. I'm thinking it's a tenacity thing. This scraggly plant stretches itself out over crumbling brick in the middle of a hostile urban environment. No one waters it or otherwise cares for it. The mean streets - or just a local pack of badly trained dogs - probably do their best to kill it. It doesn't even look like much, especially in winter when it usually looks dead enough that you wonder if it'll come back in spring.

Yet, against all odds, it does. With a sense of defiance that seems to speak to me as I stand on the sidewalk in the biting winter wind and ponder its silent, overlooked existence. If a stupid sprig of ivy can survive all this, then I'm guessing I can, too. And so can you.

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