lately in the garden

I promise that I’m planning some new posts on the blog that don’t feature garden photos in them! Lately it’s been the only time I’ve gotten the camera out of the closet, and sometimes it’s easier for me to put some thoughts down here as I go through the ritual of uploading these photos once or twice a week. May is always a busy month, but this one has barreled along with several big things simmering just below the surface. So there is a stress knot that’s taken out a short (or sort of long) term lease on my stomach that is requiring a whole lot of maintenance to unwind again and again. I do some of that in this place, so this is all I have to share at the moment.

Some of these photos are from my morning with F – it was our last morning of the school year, just the two of us. E will join us next week for the summer, and I’m looking forward to that. This summer will mark the fifteenth year that we’ve been wandering here. I owe it all to E’s daycare – they used to be located just across the street, and they’d visit the garden several times a week. I got into the habit with her as a baby, and it’s such a part of us now that it’s hard to imagine a week without a visit.

The other photos are from Saturday, when M joined me for an early walk together. The girls spent last week with my parents and sister’s family, and we had a quiet house of slightly different routines in their absence. I took advantage of a morning window to run before the temperatures heated up too much. But running helped with that stress knot I mentioned, so some days I went back for more running after work. Saturday was so warm that the garden was already toasty for our walk. Afterwards, I left town to pick up the girls and it rained and stormed at home while I was gone. I thought about all the white wedding chairs being set up earlier that day. I hope they squeezed in the ceremonies around the showers. I love the idea of a garden wedding, but I wasn’t brave enough to sweat the weather for ours. There are mornings when I turn a corner in that place and the breeze is perfect and the light is divine and I think that if I could, I’d get married again right there in that spot. Maybe we could have walked together until we stumbled upon the moment instead of planning for it. It’s sort of a charming thing to think of while I walk.

The girls discovered a high school scrapbook of mine in my childhood closet that was apparently VERY interesting, particularly the photo booth shots of me kissing someone other than their dad. For the first hour of our return trip they made me start at the beginning of the story – or at least my senior year – and tell every juicy detail that led me from there to here. The miles went by quickly, although I was hoarse in the end. It’s a funny concept – especially to an eight year old – to imagine a parent with a life before you entered it.

It’s Monday night, and I’m still worried and tense. I’m also tired and ready to fall asleep, but there are still a few things to do before I surrender to my bed. This summer schedule already feels so much better to me, despite the running around to various camps. The girls are big and self-sufficient. They make their own lunches and pack up their checklists and shower off their sunscreen and sweat on their own. F has a lot of new summer camps this year – big kid camps and sleep away ones. She’s so excited about everything that it’s contagious. She wants to tell me everything, but she’ll be asleep before her head hits the pillow. So will I.

Zig-zag bridges are designed to scare away the evil spirits that cannot follow you along the twists and turns. The thoughts and worries that keep you up at night are linear; they begin to drop off at each new corner as you navigate the shifts with ease. Even the stubborn ones can’t keep up with the turns. I’ve walked it twice, and it sort of works. The iris help too.

It’s summer in the garden, and that’s a gift. We’ll wake up Wednesday and see what’s new. And what we can leave behind us as we wander.