Reading the dictionary. Everyone wants to do this one day, don’t they? Like the Bible, or James Joyce’s Ulysseus, isn’t this task something we all will get around to accomplishing eventually in our lives? It’s been my role in this project to find words that resonate, surprise, and provoke the imagination. From the seemingly obscure and irrelevant to the profound and surprisingly forgotten, I have chosen words that send the imagination spinning. Umbel is probably our most botanical word, one that at first did not jump out at me, as it seemed so plant-specific, removed from any other realm of daily existence. But, simply put, I adored the sound of the word. Umbel. Umbel. Umbel. It just plain feels good on the tongue to say. Newly educated, I began to see umbrella-shaped flora all over town! Upon a bit deeper level of research, I discovered this is also the root word for umbrella? and so a lovely visual poem came to mind. I found a thriving carrot (yes, an umbel) plant one sunny day in the vegetable section of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and then patiently awaited a rainstorm in downtown Brooklyn. The sky and the earth below determined the direction and timing of my production.