A Meditation of Sorts

Clover and Blossoms

Yesterday on my morning walk with Butters the air was infused with the heady scent of clover blossoms. Clover always causes me to linger, but this morning even more and the  scent had me plucking blossoms and inhaling deeply.

I reflected on clover and my love for it and on a past weekend that I spent planting and mulching at my sister in laws house.  The day was not hurried, I was not hurried, there was no agenda and I often found myself stooped over searching in the clover as we talked and worked. Of course there were bees to be seen, a tiny frog discovered in the mulch, and all the signs around us that spring was reveling in her own beauty. I found myself thinking of other such times as well, at my parents and along walks with Butters and with Alan where clover had figured prominently in the memory of the time.

The clover causes a shift in my mindset.  For me searching in the clover is the pause of gratitude and the delight to be found when we look to explore and revel in the magic the universe so readily offers. It a purposeful pause, a choice to slow down and to notice the details, a meditation of sorts in its own way. Whether or not I ever actually find four leaf clovers does not matter, I am always left with a sense of peace and contentment.

Spring Fever

UNCC Botanical Gardens & Greenhouses

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago on an outing to the botanical gardens and greenhouses of one of the local universities.  The sites, smell and weather were amazing that day and made me long for my own land to dig in again.  Even without my very own land there is much to be thankful for and in awe of as the city comes alive this spring.  

Here flowering buds are bursting on the red bud, cherry and flowering pear trees and shoots of green are breaking through the dark earth and on many of the limbs of bushes and trees.  The clover has returned in full force causing me to pause in search of a lucky clover when I am out and about or on a walk with Miss Butters.  It is amazing to just watch the world around me change day by day.  

This year is moving quickly and I can hardly believe it was 4 months ago when I last posted, and what a ominous post that was since I have spent much of the time since then healing.  Ocular migraines occurred around the first polar vortex and kept me in their grips for 11 straight days.  I finally went to the doctor and thankfully after multiple trips to the eye doctor, medical doctor and several blood tests and an MRI later found out that there was nothing wrong.  The only thing I can determine is that maybe these were caused by the barometric changes in the atmosphere.  In the wake of of all of this was worry, frustration and severe eye and body fatigue.  

Just as I thought things were back on track an unexplained pain in my left hip has occurred that is just as mysterious.  I am on week 5 now of this issue and no amount of stretching, icing, hot baths, turmeric tea, or ibuprofen has provided sustained relief.  Last weekend I sobbed and could only see loss and fear. Loss in the knowledge that I was not going to be able to run my upcoming half marathon I had been training for (my first 13.1 trail run) and fear that I may never be able to run again or go on the many hikes that Alan and I have talked of for this spring and summer.  This weekend I see more possibility and despite the pain feel stronger and am trying to see this as an opportunity to concentrate more on art and writing while I heal. 

Souvenirs from Playa Del Carmen

My favorite souvenirs when I travel?  Rocks, shells, sea glass, found objects, photographs, local currency...

We simply had a wonderful vacation in Mexico.  Days filled with snorkeling, diving, happy silence, laughter, cappuccino, warm humid days filled with cool breezes, skies filled with dragonflies (yes everywhere-video to come), relaxation mixed with adventure, wonderful food (beans, rice, chicken, guacamole-a few of my favorites), and reconnecting to each other and our natural rhythms.

A Walk in The Woods

A walk in the woods was just what I needed...to once again feel that I too belonged in the universe. Amazing how the trees and leaves and rocks and breezes and blue skies can do that.

A Poem from May

 

 

Drift Seeds

　

At a stoplight entering downtown

on a late afternoon in May

I spot downy drift seeds floating from the sky.

　

At this intersection

old majestic trees give way

to stone, steel, and brick.

　

I do not know the origin of these fluffy orbs of life

or even what they will grow to be.

I only know they cause me to pause and wonder.

　

Do the other passengers and drivers and walkers

see with the same eyes and heart?

Will the stoplight camera on the corner

capture this unfolding of life?

　

All around, so much that we take for granted.

Life continues to open and close as a breath,

indifferent to the pavement or time or passerby.

A Vacation Remembered

This week I stumbled upon our vacation photos from May and fondly remembered the joy and peace found on this trip to the coast.  The clouds rushed in and out threatening of storms that never came while creating stunning portraits in the sky.  I was enthralled with the clouds, so many different shapes and designs...when I wasn't looking up...I was following the trail of shells for miles down the beach lured by the shine and shimmer and the amazing colors gifted from the sea.  There was also a visit to a lighthouse which I learned had been kept two different women when it was active.  This knowledge set off all kinds of adventuresome daydreams of beach combing and intimately knowing a piece of land and her changes in weather and season.

Commit to Memory...

  

  

Everyday Treasures



Snail Shell

I returned home from the beach Friday afternoon, but it wasn't until this morning that I returned to the rhythms of my home and daily pulls of my own ebb and flow.  Friday was a day of reconnecting with Alan and Butters and of sharing our stories of how our weeks had unfolded separately.  Saturday and Sunday were filled with cleaning, packing, repairing, donating, errand running, furniture moving, and lawn mowing all at a slow saunter due to the wet heat of a wring-your-clothes-out July weekend.  Today will be another hot one and tomorrow should be all the talk on the local news as it is scheduled to reach 99 hot and humid degrees.

This morning I awoke to sunshine and all the possibilities on the world ahead of me.  Butters ate while I made coffee and finished folding a load of laundry left over from last night.  We finally headed out the door and all Butters wanted to do was head straight down the driveway and out onto the street.  She stubbornly refused to step foot in our own yard and I gave her the benefit of the doubt that the heat was getting to her as well.  She sniffed her usual spots while I gazed up at the passing trees and down at the clover in each passing yard.  She stiffened her little body and quickened her pace as we approached the home on the left that has a large female dog that lives behind her invisible fence.  This dog will occasionally let us pass without incident but prefers to let us think she will give us pass only to rush up to the invisible fence line moments after we pass her driveway and come to a crashing halt with a deep loud bark.  I say "it's ok, and good girl" as much to Butters as to her and myself and off we go.  Today Illa, as her owners call her, was not out and about but Butters and I were both on alert until we passed her house.  We relaxed our pace, reached the end of the street and headed down the hill to inspect the open flat land in our neighborhood.  I looked at the growth of a shared garden area that two neighbors tend to and Butters sniffed all the smells of other dogs and animals that had passed before her.  As the heat was rising in time with Butters panting I cut our walk short and took her home. 

After putting Butters back in the house with water and a treat I headed out on a walk of my own.  As hot as it was I still wanted to stretch my legs some more and take a different walk through the neighborhood.  I was rewarded by an intricate snail shell that I saw in a culvert on the street.  I passed by it and caught a glimpse of the shell surrounded by what I thought were ants and then decided to pause and turn around for a second look.  Last night's rain must have washed pine needles and bark debris into a swirl around it and there was only an ant or two inspecting it.  The shell was empty and so I picked it up with a smile and heart beat of someone that just found treasure.  This simple shell along with the beauty of purple clover flowering, queen anne's lace bursting along the seems of the meadow and morning glories wrapping their way around hills and stalks reminded me that there is treasure all around me.  All I have to do is step outside my door and open my eyes to it.  The treasures of home may be more familiar and seasonal but they are none the less beautiful.

In the Garden

Yesterday afternoon I was out back in the garden watering and pulling weeds and decided to go inside and grab the camera and capture the late afternoon sun shining on the plants.  My neighbor spied me through the trees taking pictures and got a good laugh at me.  I had no idea anyone was anywhere around but just laughed back with her.  I am sure I looked funny squatting in the grass snapping pictures of basil and tomatoes and such.  She gave me some beautiful flowers to plant and we traded jalepeno peppers from her garden and zuchini from my mother's garden. 

White Squash~just pretty yellow blooms so far.....looking forward to seeing the squash

Cucumber~I like this one because it looks like a watermelon

Dill Weed

 Miniature Tomatoes

Okra~first time I have grown this...

Heirloom Tomato blooms

Our little Postage Stamp of a Garden~flooded after my chat and trading with the neighbor

Dwarf Basil Plant

Green Tomato~I am babying this one as it is the only one we have so far

Bumble Bees enjoying the Bee Balm Flowers

Wishing everyone a happy and long weekend!

Running Away

 Grandmother's Suitcases

Much of my childhood was spent under my grandparent’s roof.  This was the same home that my Mother grew up in, where my great aunt lived when her husband was away while enlisted in the military, where great-grandparents lived out the last years of their lives, and the home that my uncle and aunt lived in after getting married while they built a home of their own. 

Upstairs in the house were my bedroom, my brother’s bedroom, an alcove where my dollhouse sat and a wall of hanging garment bags that contained years and years worth of clothing with suitcases piled underneath.  Those garment bags contained a treasure trove from my mother’s tu  tu’s to my cousins hippie dresses and probably even my aunts wedding dress.  The suitcases though are what I was thinking of today.

Today for some reason those suitcases popped into my head along with the idea that I needed to run away.  Thankfully it is not for the same reasons today as it was when I was little. 

When I was a little girl I remember a specific summer in which I ran away with frequency.  There was surely something that made me upset enough to decide that I was not wanted or that everyone would surely miss me if I were gone or even the dramatic they won’t even notice I am gone.  The thing is I don’t think that my grandparents, mother or brother ever did know I was gone or if they noticed that I was gone that I had “run away”.  I had so much freedom as a child and I played inside and outside so much blending these two worlds that perhaps my family just thought I was playing “vacation”.

Today’s thoughts of running away are still about escaping but not so much from something but too something.  I just want to take a trip, an adventure of sorts.  I want to take a train or plane or even automobile.  I want to see new sites or familiar sacred places that I have been away from for too long.  I want to smell the musky forest that is unmistakable even with my eyes closed or maybe it is the aroma of grilled food as I walk along the city sidewalk, or even the salty air and misplaced perfume wafting in from the shore. I want to plan what I am going to pack and try on all of my clothes and pare it down until it will all fit into one bag.  And that one bag? 

I keep imagining that it was some small powder blue soft leather suitcase that I packed when I ran away.  For the life of me I cannot remember what I took with me.  Maybe I packed my dolls, a blanket to lie on, and a book to look at. I do remember specifically where I would go though.  There were trees that lined the street by the church baseball field.  It was just a half a mile or so from my grandparents’ home. Just past the preachers’ house and across the street from the Parker homes.  I was a little adventurer then and thought the whole earth was available to me and did not know a thing about trespassing. It was on one of those running away days that I discovered the most wonderfully cool and deep creek. It was beyond those trees and past a fenced cow pasture.  I just walked and kept walking, determined that day that I was really leaving.  Until I heard the churn of running water and found what  I knew even then to be an oasis. I climbed into the creek with all my clothes on and floated in the rushing water with just my elbows holding me up from the sandy bottom.  I felt like a pioneer woman, like little Laura Ingles Wilder and I soon made believe that creek was my spring where I kept the milk and butter and also came to wash the clothes.

More often than not I became distracted by my findings like this and forgot that I had run away and just played. I would soon be back at home, out of breath and likely with a bundle of flower like weeds, a bird’s nest, a turtle holed up in his shell and maybe even a broken eggshell or butterfly wing  and bursting to tell someone (anyone) about my adventure and what I had seen.   

Perhaps this trip down memory lane (cliche intended) was just what I needed.  This soul safari as I think of it, is a trip into my past as a way to understand my present and future. I don't really want to run away from this life, I just want to discover the newness in life.  I want to stimulate all of my senses and I want to pick up a treasure or two that the Universe has gifted to me in the form of a shell or weather worn rock.  A talisman, a provocateur of adventures and correlations previously unnamed, to borrow and stash inside that powder blue suitcase case as I continue on this journey.

From My Mother's Garden



Peonies in kitchen

Every Tuesday my Mother and I spend the evening together.  It has been this way since I was in college and as long as I have lived locally.  In college she came to see me on Wednesday evenings and took me out to dinner and listened to me talk giddily about whatever struck my fancy at the time or weep in frailty at whatever I was struggling to come to terms with.  She was always there. No matter what. 

After college when I moved back home we no longer had our one night a week because we had every day and every evening together so to speak.  Then I moved to Asheville and then later to Virginia.  The years that I was away we burnt up the phone lines and also the roads going back and forth to visit each other.



Peony close-up

Eventually I came home again and took refuge in my parents home enjoying quiet days on the farm and walking through the woods.  I think this was the year I talked them into to planting one of their biggest gardens yet and later disappeared to be with my friends instead of helping pick and can and freeze all of the bounty it produced.  Before long I was back out on my own but living close by and that is when the Tuesday evenings started.  I bought my first home in the summer of 2001 so it has been 10 years now since we started this tradition.  Sometimes we have taken classes together but we have always been together.  We share secrets, stories, memories, joys, triumphs, defeats, food, poems, books, back scratches, hugs, and the quiet presence of understanding.

In the spring and summer we enjoy talking about, shopping for and sharing plants.  This year she has brought me fern and vinca vine and last night along with the beautiful peonies she brought me blue salvia.  I cannot wait to see how big it gets.  Vila had the first blue salvia I had ever seen when she lived in Virginia and I remember falling in love with it then.



The peonies are transplants from my grandmother's garden.  I remember exactly where they were planted beside the red rose bush between her driveway and the neighbors.  This same rose bush served as my drive through bank when I was a little girl playing make believe and I would drive up to the "teller" on my pink huffy bicycle.  My grandmother would always ask my Mother or me to go cut a peony for her and two rose buds for ourselves for Mother's Day Sunday at church.  She wore the white peony in remembrance of her Mother who had passed and we wore the red roses in remembrance of our Mother's who were still very much alive.

Peonies outside in the sun

I love that these peonies are a gift from both my Mother and my Grandmother.  I was struck with the heady aroma of them as soon as I walked into the kitchen this morning.  And then I thought, the best things in life really are free.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

In the Garden

Last week was about flowers and plants and mulch and earth.
It was a week full of sunshine and birdsong,
of stretched muscles and relaxed minds.
It was a week of quiet communing and finding
my rhythm.


Spring 2011



Today Was Good

Today was good

in the way that stretching and twisting

and pushing and pulling can be.

In the way that you know will hurt later

but feels so good now

moving in a new way.

Today was good

In the way that catching

glimpses of spring-green chickweed,

shoots of hosta of the deepest purple,

and the movement that of an unexpected  spider camouflaged in the mulch can be.

Today was good

In the way that thoughts

of all the flowers and vegetables and bushes and plants

that had come before

out of this ground

can be.

Today was not sad.

It was a remembrance and celebration of the earth,

My little square of it

as I have claimed for these past 6 years.

Today was good

in the way that I wondered and hoped

that the new owners would fall in love with this hodge podge of life.

Today was good

In how I fell back in love

with all of it,

all the while wondering what will they fall in love with.

Will it be the feathery ferns that will appear out front under the shade of the trees, unfurling as the days grow warmer and summer rains soak the ground?

Or the peonies pushing through the ground and the mystery of hundreds of ants crawling over their green stalks that dazzle their eyes.

Maybe it will be the simplicity of purple buds bursting open and unleashing bright red leaves from the Japanese maple.

I hope they welcome the Snow on The Mountain that came from my grandmother

and the purple verbena that I have babied into returning each year.

I hope they too will grow

tomatoes

and pumpkins

and herbs of all kinds

and that they enjoy the earth that has been tended to

and cared for

with layers of love.

Today was good.