Spring 2021

Days fly away, hours accumulate in the thin air of the horizon as seasons come and seasons go.  And what about us where do we go to gather dreams and hopes and pray for the peace of this world?  It seems years since I stepped here last, but wintery weather has started to move away, petals are painting the grounds in pinks and whites everywhere and the lilac tree has giving us its jewels with which to perfume our nests.

Thus, I am out again.  Out in the garden working for hours as much as I can.  I have painted old pots and altered the topography of the garden by removing old plants and bringing new ones in.

This year, I decided to remove one of the Quaking Aspen I had planted along the northern fence, in the hope to cover the two-story house on the other side as quickly as possible.  The Quaking Aspen grow very quickly, I love their cream to white-colored trunks, and whimsical ‘eyes’, as I call them, which are actually the dark markings where side branches used to be. 

They provide a wonderful finishing touch to a suburban yard, and quiver delightfully in the breeze. Their leaves are charming — deep green in the summer months and brilliant gold in fall. Unfortunately, despite their lovely fall foliage color and other attributes, quaking aspens can be significantly problematic.  They are invasive. Clusters of clones will quickly grow and take over your garden.  You will have to cut new shots everywhere all the time, and they are not too reliable either, as for some unexplainable reasons, part of it, if not the entire tree can die in just a few years. 

Our neighbor on the other side, had to cut theirs down, and part of one of mine needed to be cut off too.  So I didn’t want to take the change with this one and therefore removed it roots and all, the other day.

I painted pots and painted birdbaths and whimsical things around the garden... and we gave our back porch a new coat too...

Right outside our kitchen area, three old roses that were doing very poorly were finally taken out too.  I had waited too long and had been too sentimental towards them, until now.  To replace them I have planted three new red double-Knockouts with lots of red cluster that last forever.  I will have to wait until next spring to see the growth, but I can wait.

In every season, in every time, there is some magic unfolding in the garden, but nothing like on these spring days… to walk in it and dream, to work and received to sow and to collect and sense and taste and hear… what more could I ask? A few flowers at my feet and above my dreams, the stars.

 

Covid-19

 March 15

So many ‘years’—so it seems, have transpired since I last wrote.  Such traumatic moments we have lived, too.   

Yes, both my Fisherman and I got infected with the novel coronavirus a month ago today.  Two weeks of uncertainties, days and days of not feeling well and not knowing exactly what was to be expected next, or what was going to happen to us or what we were supposed to experienced; days and days thinking of our friends and remembering those who didn’t make it, it was indeed a traumatic experience.

I spent many hours on my knees seeking help from “above”; at times feeling I was going to die; feeling unworthy at times for God to hear me, or feeling I wasn’t good enough or perhaps not holly enough for having been infected.  Guilt, fear, contrition filled my soul.  One morning when my faith was at its low and I was feeling very discouraged, I asked the Lord to speak to me and show me what I was to expect.  I was ready.  I then opened my Bible, and God said to me in a gentle, clear voice:  “Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the net is torn, and we have slipped away” (Psalm 124:7).

I knew right there and then that we were going to be fine.  We had escaped, even if we were still feeling awful!  And we did.

March 12

I have started working in the garden again—spring cleaning this place I have so abandoned for so many months is like meeting with a good friend I hadn’t seen in years again.  I’ve been discarding winter spoils and cleaning the garden’s floors of debris accumulated during the cold season.  It hasn’t been easy, this job… for this body has aged in the chronometer of an atomic clock since Covid… but it felt deliciously good, and it felt delightful like a miracle escaping through my fingers as I worked the soil and crawled under the bushes, pulling weeds and raking dead leaves with bare hands. 

I’m alive!  I made it through, and now more than ever I want this old body and feeble mind to be the sanctuary where the Holy of Holiest lives and the place where his Holy Spirit dwells.  I am so humbled and thankful for the way in which God saw us through.  I want to do so many things, change the color of my hair, cut it, get new furniture, do some improvement in the house, plant new trees, get rid of some others…

I cleaned my closet this past weekend too.  A lot of the outfits, shoes and bags I hadn’t worn in the past year were giving away.  I didn’t even have to think about it twice, for I have been ‘reborn’ and what’s the ephemeral has ever to do with real joy?  the joy that cannot be touch, but feel, the joy that gives health to your bones?

It was so freeing being able to finally part from those things that at one point in my life were not only important, but also loved and treasured.  I have been doing the same with a lot of other things in my life.  We carry so many baggage and unnecessary things; material and not material.  Negative feelings, grudges, resentment, hatreds—they weight us down and make us sick.  We need to forgive and forget, and we need to always remember that our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. 

 See you soon, my friends!

 

Hello Hola!

Just entering the thresholds of this old house—nestled in sleepy roses, makes me feel nostalgic and wistful for gone by eras. And I have to wonder if, perhaps, I am another person; and a soul I no longer recognize. 

And where has time gone to? Where the years have gone to hide... in what drawer of time and in what part of the horizon they rest? For it seems years, if not centuries, since I came here last... years since those days when life was young, and the conspiracy of happy days filled my very soul with wonder and dreams.... and why had my heart stopped dreaming? Why had my soul stopped seeing the dawn before the rest of the world?

I blame age, and I blame these long winters and those long hours at work and I blame this world and the changes that had come to rattled our peace.  Perhaps, I am getting old, or I am older, perhaps time does that to you—it makes you lose some of your boldness and some of the freedom running through your veins, to be you, be the child that you were in the spirit, be naïve and engage life with the eyes of innocence. 

Time has a way of freezing up our hearts sometimes. Whatever it is, I have changed. My heart is a hermit, my body aches, and It’s been snowing for days... snow, white and thick and unforgiving purifies my world outside and this heart feels as cold as snow—nieve.

The only thing that seems to give me some comfort are my plants and I have converted this unattractive, small room into a conservatory of sorts.... always evolving, always the place to come to daydream and read and pray... 

The room is located to the front of the house, outlooking at the street and neighboring houses. It is not really what my heart envisions or dream of, a real conservatory, sunlight beaming through the enormous glass roof where I can have all my tropical plants... 

Just to think about this makes my heart beats wildly, my thoughts to linger in some gigantic tropical plants, while I sit under an arbor covered with bougainvillea bursting with magenta blossom, just like the one, once framing the entrance to my mother’s small garden.

For nor now, this makes me happy. We all need a room that makes us happy. I don’t have a Florida room with big windows filled with sunshine year around, my floors are not even appropriate for a real plant room... they are carpeted, which means they get soil and plant debris and little pieces of wood and moss and such beauty, but it is the room for peaceful moments and faith filled hours where the heart gets recharged and hope and faith work together to really experience God.

Thank you for your friendship and kindred spirit and for still coming by... I wish you all the best. I wish you beautiful quiet days and a heart filled with faith and trust in our Heavenly Father. I truly believe we are living in perilous times. There are so many signs that tell us we are living in the last days of earth's history. Let us get ready my friends!

December...

...and winter came and I fell far away, and detached... as the garden these days—aloof and quieted. I’m drawn to its spell, slowly humming me to quiet down too... and built isolated walls around my heart.  

If I could mention only one good thing about living in a cold climate place like we do, it will have to be the coziness of cold winter days—fluffing up your nest with pillows and warm blankets; pretty fleecy throws, lighting up the candles in the middle of the afternoon and filling your space with Nature as much as you are able to.

Life has continued as it has all throughout this bitter year, but we are doing well, our family has grown; both in members and in blessings and I am thankful for a job a go to everyday without feeling miserable inside and people who I can relate to and let me expand and grow.

At home, our bedroom is in the upstairs; close to a window where the sunset sky is the gift, I get every evening before the stars come out. Now that is already dark when we get home, it is Sirius the brightest start what accompanies my nights.

I wasn’t going to decorate our home for Christmas this year.  My spirit wasn’t set alight as other years,  and I didn’t feel the bright light spirit shining inside, but then we took out the few ornaments and Christmas décor from the one box where they are kept, and now the Christmas tree is up—by the bay window at the front of the house again; where passerby would see it and where we too, as we arrive home every evening.

I love to see lights from the outside. Lights make a home a cozy nest where one would think things are good—warmth, good food, health, family and understanding. And I wish it would be like that for every home...

Last week I decided I wanted to move our dining table close to that window by the kitchen.  That’s where our dinning room was years ago.  When we moved back, I took what it used to be the Fisherman’s office and made it into our dinning room. It is a super small room and the big square table was too much for the confined space.  I wanted to be able to sit at the table again this morning, have our meals there, instead on the kitchen counter and be able to look to the garden.  So, I did.  I moved it back. 

I am pleased.  I get my much-needed sunshine sitting by the window and although it is nothing like our little white cottage with its romanticism of feral and birds, I still can look outside. 

The room we were using as our dinning room, it is now my reading/prayer room.  I have filled it up with everything I love and I have surrounded by self with plants, books and soft uplifting music.  

If you are still coming here, and remember me, 

be happy

be well

be blessed