August reveries...

August is the cathedral of summer. And yet, if I sit on my chair on the upper floors and look outside my window, I see impending changes taking place on the horizon. Far in the outlying distance, over to where the mountains are, even though you can’t see them, but you know they’re there—faithful as they are; like some ancient proverb erased from the horizon by an utterly impassive sky, there lays secrets untold. Indications of what’s to come are forming. For there, in its very own cathedral of summer stand the tall trees, canopies already changing into their muted greens and burnt reds outfits, and the morning sun is the mayor indicator of it all; for it has started the process of mellowing down, and it has already acquired that yellow tinted quality to it—muffled and hazy, so proper of the autumnal light.  Yes, like children at play, we are tumbling down that old hill called 'summer' onto the new season.   

I see the changes all around me well too clearly. My favorite part of the garden—the path to the beginning of every enchanting moment has been changing too; gradually, but surely.

I love this unpretentious little pea pebble pathway that to me takes me to my favorite place on this earth. This is the entrance to my garden, the place where Black-eyed Susans and hostas sleep under the wild lushness of the Virginia creeper, and the place where voluntary snapdragons and wood ferns play a magical tune with summer breezes. This is the place where I’m the gypsy of my heart and the Alice of my Wonderland.

Billowy grasses and dry-climate perennials give this pebbly path a rugged look, while the little round table and chairs, that old flair of the French cafes without the commotion of the big cities.

It is a magical place to me, and perhaps it really is because, that’s the sacred ground where I’d usually come to pray and just be that humble child before her Father... it is the most private place in the garden, and one of my favorites.

A new crocosmia bush is growing there now. Cousins to the gladiola, with brilliant flame-red flowers, and a tall habit, and at the far end a butterfly bush in purple glories…

Lavender garden phlox will be hugging this enchanting space next year... 

And perhaps one more rose in here? 

Yellow yellow… I love the color yellow, and these little yellow flowers are the queen of my garden this year... I want more of them, more more!

And then, before you enter the garden... this to welcome you into it!

Happiness and mystery and strange creatures all mingle and live here; teaching us about the wonder and the mystery of existence...  and I… I am that little girl living her life under the soft moonlight, the shimmering sky, the rays of the moon, and bunch of sparkling stars, I have nothing I have everything, I have just what I need and my dreams are beyond the clouds. 

“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”  (Beryl Markham, West with the Night).

Hotchpotch

I sit on top of my days and count my hours in rose petals.  Count them in quiet blessings too, and in the fact that though my feelings come and go, God’s love for me does not. 

The month of August has its own song to sing.  A song that carries through its notes, the color of emeralds and the murmur of rivers, and the garden sits upon its minutes and sings a proper tune.  The tunes and sounds of bees and wasps floating about the flowery clusters of the Virginia creeper, wild grasses swaying in midday breezes and the fire that solitude presses against my lips.

August is rose bouquets in the house and salmon and summer squash with basil and pineapple chucks.  Happy to spend my hours here—under the heat of August and the songs of summer.

The garden is a different garden than that of the months of May and June.  A hallowed emptiness hangs over it, motionless and hot. It is emptied, too, of birds and those winged fairies of the air, the butterflies, with only the common house finches and Mourning doves for visitors, and a single, solitary squirrel, owner of the neighborhood. 

Rain… I dream of you. For it hasn’t rain around here from that time at the beginning of May, and my soul yearns for the cloudy music of rainy days—that wet tic-tic-tic spring happiness and the scent of wet earth and young leaves.

I miss the wood-wandering cats of my yesterdays, cicadas in midsummer and fireflies in June. Miss the ghostly fog after a rainy night, spring peepers in the pond and rabbits quietly munching all over the weed garden.  My soul years for something I can’t name. I long for it, and I don’t know what it is.

I gave the garden a deep pruning day, the other today—8/8/18.  This date holds a resonance all its own: Balance. You'll reap what you've sown. And what have I sown?

Roses and magic… magic when I come out here at the tender solemn dawn-time and stand out and throw my head far back and look up and up and watch the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the eastern sky almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun—which has been happening every morning for thousands of years.

I finally had to change my jogging route the other day.  Those big dogs at the end of the curb on the old Amity road just terrify me.  They give a hoot about their so called ‘invisible’ fence, but then, again, what can one expect of an ‘invisible fence’?  And thus, I am not taking that route again.  Running through some safer and less vehicle congested roads it really makes a difference on my nerves.  

I have been unintentionally working on collecting more art for my artsy walls.  I have to stop doing this I know, but I keep finding these beautiful canvases, paintings and work of art that I cannot put away and must bring home with me… cheap stuff that are always one of a kind, unique cheap stuff that I must have, because I love the small things...

I have brought in from the garden a few bouquets this year, and my Shabby Chic-romantic-girly room has been feeling happy and pink all throughout spring and summer!

On July 25 I bought and planted two crocosmia plants.  They are standing on the side garden path, aka the enchanted path and one is already dying out. 

I have bought a new laptop.  It took me two days to figure it out and set things the way I like it.  I lost my iPod on the airplane on our way to Rome last June.

I love how my little Pine tree looks all lighted up in the evening when the sun goes down and shadows start to creep in… I used to keep it lit all day and all night along with all the other dimmed lamp-light and fairy-light in the house, until the Fisherman got me some Sengled Element Light Bulbs, put an app on my phone, and now I can turn on and off every light in the house with just a click…

I truly value and appreciate all of you, and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all the comments you leave here and for your concern on how life unfolds upon my soul… I don’t think I could ever express well enough, and deep enough how much you all helped me and reassured me during those dark winter days last year, after my mother passed.  And now this with my dear husband.  I consider all of you my friends, friends from here and there, from nearby and afar and sometimes, I even find myself lifting you up in my prayers.  Although I don’t know your specific needs, I do know your names, or your bloggy names, and they are on my lips when I run upstairs to meet with my Heavenly Father. 

Thank you again for being here with me time after time.  My husband the fisherman is doing splendidly.  We were finally able to find a doctor here at home, a good doctor who’s looking after him and making sure that all of our questions are being answered.  Sometimes it is hard for me to fathom all what we went through on those Florida roads did really happened. It was real, and not just a bad dream. It could had been so bad, and yet all is well; probably better now after the medical procedure he had; something of which we hadn’t the slightest idea how much it was needed.  

Ah my friends… “All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”

Life

The month of August should had started right, but it didn’t, and the relentless heat of end of summer is a dark butterfly with a demon name—Acheron.  My feet walk on mud, my heart has been entombed—confined to fear and disquiet-ness of the soul. But we’re fine.  All is well.

The night before we left on our Florida vacation I went for a late walk around the neighborhood. Pastry-goodness evening fragrances, burnt orange skies at the dying of day; when the last light shines faintly over a terracotta color world for just a few moments, before turning from dark pink to cerulean black to the darkest black. 

It was a different kind of a walk; infrequent and wonderful and full of those mysterious graces, hardly ever felt on a typical daylight walk.  My soul felt delimited by a strange sense of peacefulness, as silence gently unfolded upon the world.  Not a sound, not a bird to coo the night away.  The streets, emptied of mundane sounds and people felt warm and cozy under the end of July summer breezes.  Until all of a sudden, it felt as if I was walking on sacred ground and I could see, or sense, the presence of angels all around on soaring wings… angels hovering above our quieted neighborhood, above softly illuminated houses and above my head in a hush of glory and supervision of the mortals…

Two days later, on the second day of August, my long-life friend, companion and my dear Fisherman suffered a heart attack as we were driving the Florida roads to meet my sister and her husband. We barely made it on time to save his life; and it could had not been a more providential episode as my sister, who works on the medical field knew exactly what to do, the hospital only minutes away, he was lifted by helicopter to the nearer heart hospital where amazing doctors were already waiting for him.  “A widow-maker”, they said it was, but he had angels all around him, and miraculously, even his heart didn’t suffer much.  He’s on the way to mending himself to health and a better way of life through diet and medical care.  We are home.  We rest in the knowledge and faith that we dwell in the shelter of the Most High and rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I’ve been living some stressful times for a while now, but the LORD is our refuge and fortress, and in whom I trust.

Always good to see you around friend!

Blessed be!

In the pink...

The garden is swathed in its pink garments these days... 

Pink is the color of the end of July!

...with so much pink outside, it is only natural to want to imbued the inside of the house with some of the same shades.  So I did!

I brought in some pink pillows, some flowers some books, and some gold accents to mix with everything, and I gave a totally different look and feel to the living room.

I'm liking what I see, but it won't be for long, as I am not a pastel girl when it comes to decorating our nest. So back to the more modern approach of black white and gold soon!  

What do you think?  Like it, not?