Change

August 25, 2012 By

Looking out my kitchen window, I notice the leaves on the dogwood in my neighbor’s yard are no longer their deep summer green.  They are blotched with spots of rusty-red and the tree’s tiny berries are beginning to blush.  It’s late August.  In a bit over a week it will be Labor Day and though the earth’s rotation around the sun won’t yet proclaim it to be autumn, there is an overwhelming and unmistakable feeling that summer is indeed over.  I call this time of year, Late Summer, a season unto itself.  It overlaps both summer and fall, and unlike spring, which pushes itself headlong into the heat, this season holds back, hesitating, as though it cannot make up its mind as to which direction to take. It brings us the warm spells we call Indian Summer, along with chilly days when I wrap myself in a sweater and don socks to keep my feet warm.  Evenings can be frosty and most nights I cover the houseplants that are still thriving outdoors during daylight hours.

I’ve been noticing small daily changes for several weeks now.  A brilliant red leaf on the stairs outside my studio has given away the slow shift of seasons. I look up and down the street for its origin, but can’t find the tree that has sent it my way. The days are shorter and the afternoon light has taken on a soft, golden glow as the sun steadily sinks a bit more to the south each day.  Shadows extend themselves as if stretching before settling in for a nap. The nights are crisp. I sleep with windows wide open, welcoming fresh air and the sounds of night into my room.  Every weekday morning at eight-fifteen sharp, I listen for the laughter of children as they gather just down the street, waiting for the yellow bus that will whisk them away to school.  I’ve missed their voices all summer and welcome back this joyous morning sound.

This is my very favorite time of year.  Spring is always absolutely gorgeous and the color is breathtaking here in Central Virginia, but it only leads to the sizzle of summer, which I am not a fan of.  I do love spring and in March, enjoy cleaning up the garden of its winter dreariness. I get excited as local nurseries open their doors.  I pick and choose what to add to that bit of emptiness over there, next to the day lilies. There are always places that need replanting and I am happy to do it as the energy of new life spreads across the land.

But in late summer there is a slowness that takes the place of that chaotic summer energy.  My body slows as well and by late afternoon my yawns grow wider and noisier.  I begin wanting to go to bed a little earlier than I do in summer.  And my choice in what to wear is beginning to change as well. I’m drawn to long pants versus cropped ones.  A light sweater or hoody in the early morning when I walk the dogs is now sometimes necessary.

My tiny vegetable garden still provides us with fresh tomatoes, sweet peppers and eggplant, while local apples are beginning to appear at the Farmer’s Market.  I already miss those scrumptious, juicy peaches I’ve turned into smoothies and eaten out of hand for the past few months and summer tomatoes will be gone once a hard freeze sets in.  Soon I’ll be enjoying winter squash and lots of roots roasting in a pan sprinkled with fresh chopped garlic and rosemary.  Hearty soups and stews are just around the corner. I always look forward to the peace and settled in feeling I have in October, but this year I’m having a hard time hanging on to that thought.  I’m never ready for the commercial race that will soon begin as we are coaxed into spending our money on the various holidays, stacked up like cord wood, between now and the start of the new year.  I am also not ready for the political fray that has already begun here in Virginia. We’re one of those swing states and our phones are already ringing off their hooks with calls from politicos trying to get our vote.  The local airwaves are filled with the images and words of both parties, dividing us even further, with their insulting attacks on each other. I have difficulty with negativity and this is certainly the season for it.  I will vote, as every citizen of this country should, but I’m not happy with what we have to endure in order to do so.

Despite all of that, I’m looking forward to the scent of wood smoke wafting through the evening hours as temperatures begin to drop … the crunch of falling leaves underfoot … and the continuous changes that each day brings as the season turns.  I wouldn’t be happy in a climate that always stays the same.  If we don’t have ice and snow, we can’t appreciate the warmth of June and July. And if we don’t have our sad moments, we won’t  know what happiness is.

Are you noticing the changes taking place around you?  What is your favorite season and why?  Would you be happy if everything always stayed the same?

Filed Under: Life, Navigating Through Life, The Garden, The Seasons, Time Tagged With: , , ,

My Summer Garden

May 26, 2012 By

The back yard.

The artist is the confidant of nature,  flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms.  Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.  – Auguste Rodin

It’s been a perfect spring for reworking the garden.  Throughout May rain has been abundant with regular showers during the late afternoons and the dark of night. Just a few nights ago we had well over an inch of rain which came down fast, heavy and loud, leaving the new additions to my gardens dancing.

Most of the work is done for the summer except for continuous weeding and deadheading to keep the blossoms coming. There is space available for more plants but I wait to find the one that calls my name as I walk past it at the nursery. Or I might marvel at one in someone else’s garden and then do an all out search to find it.

Keeping the garden moist enough so that the plants thrive is another chore throughout the warm season.  In the past I’ve been guilty of over watering many plants causing them to die because they don’t like wet feet.  So this year I’m being extra wary, using a meter that tests the moisture level of the soil when it’s looking too dry.

When we bought this house almost two years ago the bank out front was covered with low growing junipers. They were green year round and were easy to maintain, but not colorful or interesting.  Last summer they started turning brown but then came back to life in the fall.  This spring there was a massive die-out and we removed them all, replacing them with a much more interesting selection of plants with the help of my gardening mentor, Maria. She and her sons have worked with me for years, doing the big, heavy jobs.

The front of the house with newly planted bank.

This year she redesigned the front bank and did all the planting. Many of the them came from Maria’s own nursery as well as from Lowe’s, where at this time of year their plant benches are overflowing with low-priced shrubs and flowers. The secret is to check in daily to see what new goodies have been delivered.

I took on the gardens in the back of the house. There is another bank above the driveway but it’s not the back breaker the one out front is.  Most of it’s in deep shade, which I love. I also added a few annuals to a sunny location for cut flowers.  I love Zinnias and Cosmos. They add boldness and grace to any flower arrangement.

Every morning as I look out into the gardens my heart swells with joy. Simply passing through from the house to the garage, any darkness of mood disappears as I take in the colors and textures around me.  Yellow day lilies, hardy white gardenias and purple coneflowers offset by a riot of soft and sharp greens make the day bright even if the sky is steel-gray.

The shade garden out back.

There is so much more to come as the season progresses and I find myself on the other side of summer.  Late bloomers and fall colors hold until the last leaf drops and the flowers go to seed.  I’ll fill an album with photos as the summer passes, so that next January when it’s cold and dark, my inspiration will continue.  Without my garden I become disconnected, unable to write or paint. It fills me with life, love, and keeps me centered. It feeds my soul.

 I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.  – Claude Monet

A reblooming day lily.

PS  I found the quotes above on one my very favorite blogs. Check out Terri Windling’s artwork and words here.

Filed Under: Life, love, Matters of the Spirit, The Garden, The Seasons Tagged With: , , , ,

What I Have To Say

April 1, 2012 By

The floodgates are straining. They cannot be opened up just a little.  I don’t have the strength to hold them so that only some of the run-off leaks out.  It’s all or nothing. By letting the stream overflow on it’s own, I risk being swept away by the torrent when the gates can longer resist the building pressure of words on the other side. Just a few weeks ago there was a void so deep that I was sure it would never fill again.  Such is the writing life and to be expected, I suppose.

For me it seems to be about satisfaction with life in general.  When the river dried up about a month ago I allowed myself to do other things.  I played, pottered about the house, straightening, neatening, and allowing myself to be at peace with the drought of words. I had time each day to notice the moon and stars as evening slowly overtook my world.  I sat and marveled at the early swelling of flower buds, the unfurling of leaves and a robin chasing his image reflected in the side view mirror of a neighbor’s car.  He was  intent on capturing the heart of the lady robin who appeared to be flirting with him. She disappeared each time he would try reaching out to her. I could feel his frustration growing. Can the desire for a mate and the desire to write be the same?  If it has to do with love, it must be so.

Instead of playing with words, I’ve been planting seedlings in the garden.  A few days ago I planted over three dozen plants: Christmas ferns, bleeding heart, tiny shooting stars, native columbine and Alleghany spurge. They are happily growing in the corner of the yard under blooming dogwoods and forest green hemlocks. Now that corner is aglow with new life, Mr. Robin appears to have found a real Mrs. and they are carrying dried grasses and leaves to a newfound nesting spot.  I’m at my desk writing words.

I’ve come to believe that the muse will never abandon me. We need a break from each other every now and then, like two lovers who go off to travel separate corners of the world.  They return vowing never to leave each other again.  They will of course separate again, but only for a time, because as the old saying goes: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

I wrote the following poem back in 1991 when I was struggling with words and life in general.  Writing it helped me release the pressure building inside my head and my heart.

Words

Push
Through
Spreading
Fissures
I force
Them back
Repress
Meaning
Sounds
Dismiss them
As inadequate
Already said
Yet they must
Begin somewhere
As if there is
A place to start
Here on this line
Reaching those
Who would hear
What I have to say

A few of the plants I put in.

Filed Under: Gratefulness, love, Poetry, The Garden, The Seasons, Writing Tagged With:

Seeking Balance

March 17, 2012 By

My growing garden.

 I was feeling blocked, unable to unplug the movie I’d been screening in my head.  Writing a memoir is difficult work, especially since I’ve spent most of my time for the last month reliving parts of my life that were less than pleasant.  I needed a break from the past.

This week, the days were in the mid-seventies and eighties, sunny with a few clouds, but only a drop of much-needed rain. It was almost perfect gardening weather. I did a tad of pruning and pulled weeds. I bought four gorgeous hellebores in full bloom and this morning tucked them in the ground on what was once a bank of nothing but Ivy.

In Charlottesville, as in most regions of the state, there is more Ivy than any other kind of plant. It can easily overtake a stonewall and bring it crashing down. It can kill trees, shrubs and any plant that decides to take it on.  Last fall I hired a man to pull up all the Ivy on that bank and we built a small patio on top of the rise. This spring my project is to fill the empty garden space with shade loving plants. Hellebores that often bloom in late January, ferns, and hostas are the most likely candidates. But there are many others that will not be overlooked. Since doing my daily memoir writing was not happening anyway, I figured it was a good time to start.

The garden is a perfect place to come to terms with what’s bothering me. Among the plants and the promises of spring I can do some inner weeding.  When I spend time outside with plants, allowing my hands to dig in the soil, my mind and heart opens, awakening to earth messages and spirits sent at this time of year to heal the land and its creatures after a long, dark winter.

Here in Virginia, the winter has been a warm one. The two snowfalls we’ve had are the joke of the season. Now the land is alive with trees and shrubs that usually begin blooming in mid-April. Today we had our lawn mowed. It no longer looks like a typical hayfield in late July. I’m anxious to go off to the nurseries and find more plants for my garden.  Spring officially arrives early Tuesday morning and I’m ready to dance into the new season.

My hands and fingers are happy that I’ve dipped them in the warming soil. But now they again itch for the keyboard. My heart and mind are clear, ready to process the next part of my story. I will gently place the words on the blank screen that awaits them, and this time I will try to be continually mindful of the state of my emotions so that the wall that I ran into a few weeks ago doesn’t stop me from moving forward.

For me, balance is the key.  I am not like the tightrope walker who gracefully dances her way along the wire while balancing her umbrella on the tip of a finger.  I need stops along the way where I can take the time to recompose myself.  The garden is one of those places.

Hellebores planted today.

Filed Under: Gratefulness, Life, Matters of the Spirit, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, stories, The Garden, The Seasons, Writing Tagged With: ,

Melt Down

January 25, 2012 By

In the process of preparing a stew to throw in the crock pot, get the laundry in and simply neaten up the place after days of stagnation and being sick, I suddenly realized that I have today, tomorrow and Thursday to get my act together.  On Friday I’ll go up to DC to see a few shows and maybe a museum or gallery. Returning late on Saturday, I’ll pack a bigger bag and head to Florida on Monday morning where I’m looking forward to spending a week with a friend.

After four days of feeling crappy, I’m feeling somewhat better.  I can breathe, though sometimes I’ll have one of those coughing spells that makes me sound like the Bloodhound who lives up the street. My energy is returning slowly. Just not fast enough for ME.

ME, I, whoever! The part of Joan that likes to keep moving, doesn’t like to sit for long periods of time, and starts telling herself stories when she can’t do what she wants.  The story about being sick and how she hasn’t exercised in days and is sure she’s gained ten or twenty pounds by now.  The story about all the stuff that she didn’t get done because she was sick and how in the world is she going to get it all done before leaving on Friday.

Mostly it’s a story about feeling sorry for herself and another story she was planning to get started writing this past week.  A story that is crucial to her memoir project, filled with lessons. She was driven to begin the writing when that dang cold came to visit.  Her head hurt most of the time and it was hard to breathe. She was terribly tired.  Her husband was away and somehow she had to keep up with taking care of the pets and feeding herself.  During all of that, the inspiration for writing the story for her memoir slipped away into the ether and the page where it was to start remains empty.

Then this afternoon she had to go out briefly and realized that the sun was shining and she didn’t need a sweater or a coat because it’s sixty-one degrees.  She saw the moss that grows on the stonewall green and glowing after several days of rain, snow and sleet.  She saw daffodils peeking through the still wet garden soil and a shrub beginning to exhibit its tiny white flowers.

At that moment Joan’s other part came alive realizing that she’d not been living in the here and now, not living her intentions, not trusting that when the writing wants to happen it will happen and that being sick is not the end of the world.  She forgot that taking care of herself, without stress and strain is the most important thing she can do for herself.  After all, last week was supposed to be a retreat!  Why not be sick?  Thank goodness she’ll be better for her trip!

Things will be on the quiet side here until she returns tanned, renewed and ready to tackle whatever comes her way.  Spring is not far off.  Let’s all watch the slow unfolding of the season and live each moment as it is.

Filed Under: Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Retreats, The Seasons, Travels
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