Topiary Prisoner or Free Spirit?

-seen on an apartment building on Pendrell Street in the West End

One of my nieces, Megan, is 29-years-old and a free spirit. She loves to travel. She's an excellent photographer. She has worked really hard this past winter teaching during the day and tutoring 7 clients throughout the week at night.

As a result of the tutoring she tells me that she has almost doubled her income. This summer she is about to head off to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. She is going first to a yoga retreat, then she's going to learn some of the more complicated Fire Poi moves that she first learned in Thailand when she was travelling through S.E. Asia a few years back.

After her yoga retreat she's going to find a beach to surf at and do some scuba diving and hopefully she'll hook up with a fellow traveller or two to explore Nicaragua which seems to be the new hot spot.

Five weeks of adventure. Meeting new people. Having fun. Being joyful. Learning about other cultures. And, as the auntie I can't help myself; I must add in staying safe by paying attention and listening to your intuition. Right Meg?

I really admire her spirit of adventure. It's what you're supposed to do when you're young. It's what will keep you smiling when you're really old. At least then, when you're bored, you will have all those fun memories to keep you entertained and keep you smiling as if you have the best secrets, and maybe if you lived with a spirit of adventure, you do.

It's what will prevent you from feeling like the "Topiary Prisoner" in the above photo. I like to think of it as creative gardening with a sense of humour.

I looked at it and wondered what made the person do that. Did they feel trapped? They could have created just about anything. Why this? Or is this a representation of someone dancing? We don't have enough whimsy in our lives do we?

What did you see and/or think when you first looked at this photo?

Follow up: Another photo similar to this I took got published in The Georgia Straight newspaper and I noticed the week after that the actual gardener saw it in the Straight, wrote a letter saying it made his day. That made my day!:-)
Read his letter here!