This morning rather grey and cool-ish has a definite settling of fall in the air.
The familiar stiffness in my hands and feet, the ache of overwork and not enough
gentle stretch also usher in this change in temperatures.
Regardless of threatening almost icy droplets from the sky, I step out for a brief walk among what is left of the garden.
Some things showing obvious signs of being touched by the frost, have curled themselves up in crispy cringes and shivers.
The pine trees have dropped so many golden/orange needles that they have carpeted the drive, and almost completely covered the surface of the pond in fall like splendour. Many of the gardens look thin and patchy with much soil showing, not the way I like it. Yet through quiet observance I can spot a few fellows just now getting their flower heads ready to burst forth. Amazing really, nature and it’s sense of timing.
There is a large patch of hydrangea at the back fence, that I have doubts will get to showing white, as the others have done. It seems suspended in time, just lightly green, cascading down from the fence line under the great pine and blue spruce. As the squirrels scurry around and through in their busy gatherings, denoting the coming of cold. Yet she sits and smiles, in subtle patience .. all in good time.
When I am at the kitchen sink, I smile out at this late blooming beauty, and ground myself in her willingness to hold her own.
I have just finished a wonderful book, that I stayed with for longer than was probably necessary to just read it, but in who’s pages I was so wonderfully enthralled. No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence by Emily Herring Wilson. A book I was directed to by another book, which I also found through the pages of another book. That is absolute perfection for me!
It is a fantastically well-researched biography of just a lovely, lovely woman, her garden and the friendships that grew through her never-ending interest in horticulture.
Except that when I have finished it , I am at once immediately lost down the rabbit hole of researching my next read. Of writers and gardeners, designers, creators and strong intelligent women, who’s stories capture me completely.
When I realize it is no longer morning, and I have frittered away time, I take up my camera, exchange my fuzzy slippers for flip-flops (there’s no snow yet!) and take to a wander outside.
As I greet what is left of my flowers, I smile an awkward smile at them, and offer up my apologies that I am not the kind of gardener that I have just been reading about. Instead of proper plant names, most times they are referred to as the pink ones, and those yellow thingy’s. Also unlike the lovely Elizabeth, rarely do I invite visitors in, except in this way.
Today my most welcome visitors are the little chick-a-dees, who are peeping from a branch just above my head. The baby cardinals, and Mr. Blue, who I know likes to hear, he is beautiful and so I tell him often, as this indeed makes us both happy.
Despite what I have written, I am sure visitors here might say – ‘Really these are your gardens?
They’re not so great. ‘
True, they are often wild and unkempt, but that is precisely how I love them, and
quite possibly.. why.
In fact, preferably my garden gate is closed.
It is the privacy,
the sanctity of my own garden that reminds me
how easy it is to let go of thoughts
of measuring up,
or comparing
accomplishments and standing.
It is sometimes my closing off of
the outside world.
It is my refuge.
For it is here,
we each, the flowers, the wildlife and I
we stand our own ground…
in beauty and peace,
in our own time.
we shine in varied hues and bow
in subtle grace
we are blessed by sunshine and rain
and take them
as they come,
we appreciate our place
in the
here and
now
and we bathe
in
gratitude
and open to
understanding
as when it is time..
there is comfort
in knowing
it can indeed
be a blessing
in quietly surrendering
again
to the earth ♥