Pressing On

Come With Me On a Day Away

Our mornings have dawned and stretched like this lately. They bring a sense of peace, not to mention delightful cooler temps.

 

I took the day away yesterday-- especially away from the computer, and to do that, I have to get completely out of the house. I went up to ride my horse and visit with my friend and horse trainer, Mark. That's him on my horse, not me. I'm the picture-taker. I'm awfully proud of learning to ride, but these days I don't so much ride, as let my horse carry me around. Still, I savor the scents of the horses and the moist earth, and the opportunity to take photographs.

 

Here are some hardworking hands.

 

I just love to take pictures of hands and feet. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I consider feet and hands the most wonderful things. These particular hands and feet have been great gifts to my life.

I also saw this in town, when we stopped for cold drinks. I could barely see in the light, simply aimed and shot. So cool. The universe kindly hands us gifts all the time.

And here is our future.

It was the first time in decades that I have gotten to see children getting out of school, and hear, too, all about Homecoming plans.

While I was working on this post, something triggered a memory and a writing idea leaped into my mind. It was one of those wonderful moments, where the heart sings with possibility and joy. "Fascinating!" the heart says.

I think the idea is a result of getting out and soaking up color and vibrant life. "An artist date," writer and creativity teacher Julia Cameron calls it. For the first time I experience clearly that the creative impulse works on it's own, but we must nurture it, feed it, in order for it to have something with which to work.

Our mornings have dawned and stretched like this lately. They bring a sense of peace, not to mention delightful cooler temps.

 

I took the day away yesterday-- especially away from the computer, and to do that, I have to get completely out of the house. I went up to ride my horse and visit with my friend and horse trainer, Mark. That's him on my horse, not me. I'm the picture-taker. I'm awfully proud of learning to ride, but these days I don't so much ride, as let my horse carry me around. Still, I savor the scents of the horses and the moist earth, and the opportunity to take photographs.

 

Here are some hardworking hands.

 

I just love to take pictures of hands and feet. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I consider feet and hands the most wonderful things. These particular hands and feet have been great gifts to my life.

I also saw this in town, when we stopped for cold drinks. I could barely see in the light, simply aimed and shot. So cool. The universe kindly hands us gifts all the time.

And here is our future.

It was the first time in decades that I have gotten to see children getting out of school, and hear, too, all about Homecoming plans.

While I was working on this post, something triggered a memory and a writing idea leaped into my mind. It was one of those wonderful moments, where the heart sings with possibility and joy. "Fascinating!" the heart says.

I think the idea is a result of getting out and soaking up color and vibrant life. "An artist date," writer and creativity teacher Julia Cameron calls it. For the first time I experience clearly that the creative impulse works on it's own, but we must nurture it, feed it, in order for it to have something with which to work.

Thoughts of a Lazy Gardner in the Hot Summertime

The heat broke yesterday. If you can consider 95 degrees a break in the heat, which we do, because for four days before that the temps hovered around 105. We have not had a good rain in weeks. Our lawn and pasture have turned brown. We used to water the lawn every summer, but I appear to have given that up. I have managed to keep the flowers watered, going out in my pajamas around 6 am each morning before the burning sun and heat to water little gardens and pots edging the house. I am amazed to still get a few flowers. The miracle of nature.

These red blossoms are from my Chrysler Imperial tea rose. Some thirteen years ago I bought the plant as a gift for someone who was unable to use it. So I brought it home and stuck it in the ground. It has gone through drought and bores, and loses it's leaves each year due to blackspot, just looks all scraggly, yet it produces the most beautiful heavenly fragrant blossoms, especially now in the dry baking heat all the day long.

The Graham Thomas are pretty bushes and keep on producing yellow blossoms each day, too. I like to have them on the table in the morning while I drink tea and journal, sometimes beside my computer.

And the deep cobalt salvia! In the spring, when it should have been producing the largest blooms, the high winds we get on the plains whipped the plants to shreds. Now, in quite a surprise, they are blooming against the fiery hot retaining wall like nobody's business.

I know little about gardening, except that I enjoy for a few weeks each spring sticking things in the dirt, and I especially enjoy bringing in flowers in small vases. Since late June, except for about a half hour outside each morning, watering and puttering and drinking tea, I have been hibernating in the cool air-conditioning, leaving the plants on their own. The flowers amaze me by continuing to bloom with so little care.

This is a good lesson to me. Gardening does not have to be all that hard or all that perfect. Granted, Better Homes and Gardens is not about to come to my home to do a feature (except on how not to do things), but I'm still getting flowers every day for my desk. The rose bushes do not seem to care that there are weeds here and there. There a big poke weed right in the midst of the rugosa rose bush, and it's still growing and blooming.

Things don't always have to be hard. I don't always have to work hard. I don't always have to strive and strain. Sometimes the garden, and life, blooms with almost no effort from me. It is the nature of life to often give me gifts. My part is to enjoy, and to say, "Thank you."

The heat broke yesterday. If you can consider 95 degrees a break in the heat, which we do, because for four days before that the temps hovered around 105. We have not had a good rain in weeks. Our lawn and pasture have turned brown. We used to water the lawn every summer, but I appear to have given that up. I have managed to keep the flowers watered, going out in my pajamas around 6 am each morning before the burning sun and heat to water little gardens and pots edging the house. I am amazed to still get a few flowers. The miracle of nature.

These red blossoms are from my Chrysler Imperial tea rose. Some thirteen years ago I bought the plant as a gift for someone who was unable to use it. So I brought it home and stuck it in the ground. It has gone through drought and bores, and loses it's leaves each year due to blackspot, just looks all scraggly, yet it produces the most beautiful heavenly fragrant blossoms, especially now in the dry baking heat all the day long.

The Graham Thomas are pretty bushes and keep on producing yellow blossoms each day, too. I like to have them on the table in the morning while I drink tea and journal, sometimes beside my computer.

And the deep cobalt salvia! In the spring, when it should have been producing the largest blooms, the high winds we get on the plains whipped the plants to shreds. Now, in quite a surprise, they are blooming against the fiery hot retaining wall like nobody's business.

I know little about gardening, except that I enjoy for a few weeks each spring sticking things in the dirt, and I especially enjoy bringing in flowers in small vases. Since late June, except for about a half hour outside each morning, watering and puttering and drinking tea, I have been hibernating in the cool air-conditioning, leaving the plants on their own. The flowers amaze me by continuing to bloom with so little care.

This is a good lesson to me. Gardening does not have to be all that hard or all that perfect. Granted, Better Homes and Gardens is not about to come to my home to do a feature (except on how not to do things), but I'm still getting flowers every day for my desk. The rose bushes do not seem to care that there are weeds here and there. There a big poke weed right in the midst of the rugosa rose bush, and it's still growing and blooming.

Things don't always have to be hard. I don't always have to work hard. I don't always have to strive and strain. Sometimes the garden, and life, blooms with almost no effort from me. It is the nature of life to often give me gifts. My part is to enjoy, and to say, "Thank you."

Here and Now

4:30 am. I can't go back to sleep.

I get up, grab my journal and go downstairs. Make a cup of tea and sit in the low light of a solitary light.

Onto the pages of my journal, I  pour out my heartaches. Regrets, all of them.

Shoulda'. Coulda'. Woulda'. Choice errors, although I'm not even certain what other choices I might have made. Regrets for weaknesses, and for seeing those things that I would not change, even if I could. I wipe them away with my sleeve.

Regrets are like weeds. They start with just one and the next thing you know, your mind is all choked with them.

Regrets are feelings, and feelings are not facts. They are, in fact, always based on yesterday. They are left-overs-- pardon a bit of mixed metaphors here-- regrets are like last night's meatloaf, cold, dry, and stale. What do you do with it?

You throw it out.

Suddenly I become aware of Fancy. With my lap full of my journal, and my sorrows, she has gotten as close as she can by lying her head on my foot.

She purrs. Her fur is soft on my skin.

Grace come to meet me where I am, bringing comfort, and bringing me back to the present moment.

I can only experience grace in the here and now. I can only experience life in the here and now. Everything else is dead and gone.

For quite sometime I sit, feeling Fancy's warmth and purring, while I sip tea.

Life is good again.

4:30 am. I can't go back to sleep.

I get up, grab my journal and go downstairs. Make a cup of tea and sit in the low light of a solitary light.

Onto the pages of my journal, I  pour out my heartaches. Regrets, all of them.

Shoulda'. Coulda'. Woulda'. Choice errors, although I'm not even certain what other choices I might have made. Regrets for weaknesses, and for seeing those things that I would not change, even if I could. I wipe them away with my sleeve.

Regrets are like weeds. They start with just one and the next thing you know, your mind is all choked with them.

Regrets are feelings, and feelings are not facts. They are, in fact, always based on yesterday. They are left-overs-- pardon a bit of mixed metaphors here-- regrets are like last night's meatloaf, cold, dry, and stale. What do you do with it?

You throw it out.

Suddenly I become aware of Fancy. With my lap full of my journal, and my sorrows, she has gotten as close as she can by lying her head on my foot.

She purrs. Her fur is soft on my skin.

Grace come to meet me where I am, bringing comfort, and bringing me back to the present moment.

I can only experience grace in the here and now. I can only experience life in the here and now. Everything else is dead and gone.

For quite sometime I sit, feeling Fancy's warmth and purring, while I sip tea.

Life is good again.