saturday morning in the garden, and gratitude

My Saturday mornings can look a little busy on paper, but they have really become the highlight of my week. I’ve been doing this Power Yoga class that I’ve really come to love because it’s so difficult and challenging, and it gives me such a feeling of accomplishment for the rest of the weekend. It’s from 8:45-10:00am, which means it’s sort of mid-morning, and it’s also during the middle of some of my other favorite Saturday morning activities in the city – the early morning garden hours and the farmer’s market at Tower Grove. I still make it work because it’s worth it. I get up around six on Saturday, head over to the garden by seven, spend a little over an hour there, head to the class, then back over to the market after class. On Friday night I ask who’s in? F is always in.

I made some oatmeal for us to take in the car, and we drove over and ate it at the entrance. I let her pick our path, and she chose the Ottoman Garden – a favorite of hers (and mine).

We started looking for new flowers that were just starting to open – and we talked about how different they look in bud form versus flower form. She wondered how surprised the first person to see the flowers must have been. I mean – look at this poppy below with the funny little buds shaped like balls with a sprout of hair. And then, wow. Once we thought about it for awhile, we looked for flowers and buds everywhere. She was imagining this world of no color and then first color. We couldn’t stop thinking about it. She wanted to discover a new flower, and then wait patiently for it to explode into form and color so that she could be the first person ever to see it.

I feel like the first person ever to see things when I’m there so early in the morning. I watch her walk, apple in hand, captivated by one thing or another, not ever looking straight ahead.

The lilies look so very similar at first. She dances between the hundreds and hundreds of kinds and marvels at how different they are in their sameness.

Both girls like to find themselves in Henry’s garden. When they were little, they would both talk to him there. I don’t know where that comes from, but they like this spot, and seem to understand something about sharing their gratitude for this space.

I give her a large amount of freedom for wandering here, and I think she’s ahead of me, but she’s circled back again to talk to him one more time.

This place is like a prayer to me, a continual way of expressing gratitude for beauty that is nearly beyond comprehension, even as we watch it unfold in front of us every few days. I don’t know how good I am at teaching my girls how to express this, but I hope that they will always remember our walks together here. I hope they remember to whisper their gratitude, and to find peace in gardens long after our walking days are over.