the blue muse

because there it is, almost as tall as I am

(after I went out and picked it up off the ground yesterday,
staked it up, hoping it will hold, because
I’m not ready to let go of this love just yet.)

the view from my studio window this morning
and the tiny bit of pink up there at the very top
is kiss me over the garden gate
and all of this just to say that
love actually is
(quite literally)
all around

.

wishing you a week filled with love

.

Because it’s almost August and I’m not ready for August, which matters not at all because August will most certainly arrive with a song on its lips of “ready or not, here I come.”

It’s been a busy summer, a busy year, but then again, they’re all busy, aren’t they? I seem to have two modes, busy and doing nothing, and I don’t seem to be very good at finding the correct shade of anything in between.

So be it.

Busy and I are old friends, and if I am honest, busy has saved me on more than one occasion. I hear people all the time talking about busy as the enemy, and I guess I see their point, a little, but mostly, I think busy is what we’re meant to be.

Not that I don’t love a lazy afternoon, or a long Sunday in the garden with no agenda, but the simple truth is, I am happier when I am busy. Of course, busy to me almost always equals creating, so perhaps that’s the difference.

A flower is always busy setting seed, is it not? The pretty blossom phase is really just a bridge to the final destination, a flower’s whole purpose in life is to create its own legacy.

I kind of like that.

Bloom.

It’s a much prettier way of being busy.

And these petunias in a new color
that took some getting used to.

The lazy days of summer are here,
space to breathe,
read,
sink into the heat
and cherish the sky.

It’s been a summer of love.

A summer to love.

The sun on my skin,
my faced turned upward
like a flower.

Soaking it in.

Holding on.

The pure gold
of last light.

.

.

.

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those smiles say it all

.

.

.

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I have “better” pictures, more formal, more serious.

But this is the one I love best.

I think because this is the moment I knew.

And so, tomorrow, a wedding celebration.

With silly faces and beaming smiles.

And all the love we can fit in our hearts.

It’s going to be beautiful.

Just like you.

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xoxo

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.

.

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the love song of a garden

plays an endless loop

of

before

[bloom]

after

.

and my only job

is to listen

.

.

.

.

.

because the light your reach for

reflects your glow

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wishing you a week filled with sunshine

I haven’t had snapdragons in years. I missed them.

And I still miss foxgloves and delphiniums, zinnias and cosmos. Maybe next year. My garden has gone from messy cottage to slightly less messy stick-with-what-likes-to-grow-there.

And so it is.

Last night I stepped outside at dusk to call for Naughty Kitten, just at the moment when it seemed all the birds were flying home for the night.

Green herons crissed-crossed with robins, cardinals went ’round starlings, swallows swooped away from mourning doves.

The hummingbird hovered on his own at the feeder, having no match for his flight pattern.

And the tiniest baby toad seems to think I’m its mother, every time I walk outside it comes to me from the hiding place it waits in. I keep moving it, whispering the danger from Kitten, but it keeps returning, making me smile with its teeny-tiny-ness.

Simple joys.

This morning I awoke to a house filled with sunshine. Those same birds sang me awake, again. My garden smells like summer. And there I was smiling, again.

Perhaps my simple life should be boring. I’m sure to some people, it would be.

But somehow, to me, it feels just right.

.

.

.

Last night I sat outside and watched a storm roll in, a storm that was supposed to be a bad one, and indeed, the sky turned black and the wind turned vicious and the birds sounded their own sharp warning.

I sat there and wondered why I never grow tired of the sky.

Thunder rumbled its way into the distance, and then the rain came, dropping words to the ground all around me.

Tomorrow’s flowers, every color of the rainbow, washing the dust of life away.

I sat there and told myself I would always remember that moment, but I know I won’t.

It will melt into a melange of all the other nights of storm watching, garden gazing, summer loving, sky worship.

Each one of them perfectly delicious.

from a bucket of sunshine

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a weekend of good food, good books,
good weather, good company

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still life with gratitude

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