January...

It has been a brutal January… brutal in many aspects of my life, and this old body does not like winter either.  In the innermost part of my soul it’s been snowing for a while now, and outside is cold and windy and it is the usual January of my yesterdays.  

There are nights when I question our decision to return over and over, and there are days when passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, daunting from a distance. 

We have been working in the garden step by step—mostly, doing some aggressive pruning on everything that somehow still remains alive out there.  We have eliminated one of the wild grapes, and although we were not able to remove it in its entirety, and roots are still deeply set in the ground, I will make sure those awful shoots won’t stand a chance again. 

There’s yet one or two more grapevines I want to remove as well, and I have cleaned out parts of the flowerbeds where the big fountain now sits.  There's much more to be done in that area, and I will have to pull out from its roots all that groundcover that has taken over everything.  But it will have to be at a later time, when it starts growing again, and I can exactly define where their roots are.  

The roses, including all the climbers, are now pruned down to the ground, and what a respite this has been... to see unpleasant canes gone and cleaned walls ready for a new beginning.  We still have to decide who’s picking up all this trash and debris out of the garden, and I hope it isn't me, because it won't be just a single trip to the dump, and all those long, prickly canes are a most treacherous of things, and the garden is the ultimate most discouraging little place in the whole wide world right now.

If one thing I’m doing differently this time in my garden without the least of remorse, is the callousness under which I’m working.  The affection, the tenderness, all is gone.  I’m pruning aggressively, cutting away with total indifference, and if whatever is left in the garden dies under my brutality, then let it be.  Nothing could be worse than what already is.  So, let be it.     

People ask me why I keep changing things in my house so often and so radically, and perhaps it all has to do with the emotions that are controlling me these days? 

I need to be busy, be occupied in something I love.  Our nest is clean and organized, and I can only do so much outside for now... 

To reconnect with my inner peace, I decorate and redecorate.  My little gypsy room has been the scapegoat of all this craziness going on inside me… this is where I spend a lot of time playing with pretty things... and changing things around again again and again…

 

I had forgotten that when we went to Israel last summer I had brought home with me a lovely assortment of silk scarves that I'm using for different purposes around the house, because they are so big and lush and colorful and pretty!... now, they are embellishing this sofa!

This little corner here is my favorite... 

I love going through pages and pages of home and garden books sitting on the floor...

Plants make me so happy...  so I keep pilling them up!

Every time you see pictures of this couch and this room, I have changed everything about it.  But I think they all look beautiful.

Today, I brought a dead tree from the garden in here... it is to be my magical tree now, and I have embellished it with fairy lights and whatnots...  I will be showing it to you later so I won't bore you.  In the meantime, I will keep busy thinking of whatever else I can do here to keep my sad little heart happy, until the sun comes out again and much needed warmth fills the earth with mirth and joyfulness again...

See you soon my friend!