"The future is plump with promise" (-Maya Angelou)

Another Thanksgiving is safely ensconced as a warm memory, and the leftovers are still within reach when the urge for comfort food strikes.

So, today, in the warm, fall light, Joe and I ventured out in search of a place that still had tulip bulbs for sale.
Not an easy task. I'd looked everywhere this past week.

Since I'd been on the road,and hadn't purchased any bulbs earlier, I was slowly becoming resigned to the fact that we might just have to accept a spring without tulips.

I know..

Qu'est ce que c'est?
Incroyable!
Sacre Bleu!

Granted, I suppose I could have ordered them online. But fear not: my favorite nursery still had some, and we hurried over to fill bags of bulbs that will gracefully emerge as glorious spring color.


Then, on our way out the door, bags in hand, we happened upon a beautiful white camellia bush that called to us. Mind you, camellias often call to us, and we already have five camellia bushes around our yard in various colors. In all honesty, I wasn't sure where we'd put one more camellia plant, but as luck would have it, we found just the right spot. So...now, we have another beautiful flower.

I head out tomorrow morning on my final fall trip. Now, safe in the knowledge that we're "covered" on the tulip front, I am gently cradling these bulbs into a drawer in the fridge, and after next week, I'll look forward to spending a day digging and tucking promising bulbs into the sweet soil for their burst of color in just a few short months.

Truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light. (-Ellis Peters)

“Bring the tulip and the rose, While their brilliant beauty glows.” (-Eliza Cook)

A Tulip Garden

Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,

Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,

The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry

Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace

Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!

Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,

With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye

Of purple batteries, every gun in place.

Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,

With torches burning, stepping out in time

To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,

We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime

Parades that army. With our utmost powers

We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.

(-Amy Lowell)

“New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday.” (-Charles Lamb)

Here’s wishing everyone the Happiest New Year!  
May 2009 be full of wonder for you.

“A new year is unfolding—like a blossom with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within.” (-Unknown)

“The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs.”

In every room of our house, there’s always a vase with cut flowers in it. Doesn’t matter what season: even in the dead of winter, we’ll have pansies and camellias to bring inside to brighten up the place. We're fanatics about it. I'll spend lots of time placing flowers in every room, and Joe will ask me, in a concerned tone, "Did you remember to put one in the bathroom upstairs?" Horrors, "yes," I'll respond, and he will calm down immediately to hear that reassuring news.

People tell me we have a lot of vases, and it’s true; we do. I suppose it’s a weakness, but it’s an ailment Joe suffers from even more than I do. He’ll spy a vase that he likes and he just can’t pass it by. I’ll remind him that we have plenty of them, but it’s just an addiction and I tell myself that he really can’t help himself.

As for me, I’m certainly not going to turn down a new one. Some I've had for years, some friends have given us and some Joe surprises me with. Cut flowers won’t always last that long, but part of the beauty of flowers is their ephemeral nature, and that’s what makes them so appealing to me in the first place. We're fortunate that most of our cut flowers are from our own gardens, and we love them.

“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And don’t forget to smell the flowers along the way.” (-Walter Hagen)

"Improvement Needed"

“Education is what remains after one forgets everything he learned in school.”
(-Albert Einstein)

As a young girl growing up, I was smart in school, and I always got good grades. I went to a competitive Catholic school and enjoyed learning. Well,... I always got good grades, excepting in one area, where I was given an “I,” which stood for “Improvement Needed.” That area was “Social Conduct.” Basically, what that meant was that I talked in school. The nuns gave me a black and white composition notebook all for myself, and called it my Punish Assignment Notebook. Every single night I wrote, in cursive, 500 times, “I must not talk in school.”

I honestly did try not to talk, but I just couldn’t help it. The nuns were hoping that instead of talking so much, I'd be praying rosaries. Sadly, to this day, I have awful penmanship, and I still talk a lot.

The only other subject where I got a poor grade was in Art, and I once again got an “I.” In the first grade, Sr. Marietta handed out sheets of graph paper to each of us. We were instructed by Sister to count over 12 spaces and place a dot there. Then, down several spaces and place another dot. This went on until we had a page full of dots, and then, we were asked to connect them all and color in the image. The result was a rigid Christmas tree with little round ornaments at the end of every row of dots. Everyone’s drawing looked exactly the same except for mine: I didn’t like the fact that there were only ornaments on each side of the tree, but none in the middle, and I’d made mine cover the whole tree. That was evidently not desirable in Art.

No wonder I was afraid to ever take Art classes again…

“School’s a weird thing. I’m not sure it works.”
(-Johnny Depp)

"Is this tonight? or today?" (-my son Eric as a small child)

It didn’t take me long to realize that time, and the whole notion of time was confusing to my son as a small child. “In a week,” “in an hour,” or “next year” are incomprehensible to a tiny child. I tried to show him that if we planted bulbs in the fall, “next spring” we would be rewarded with beautiful tulips. While he was impatient, and would check religiously to see if the foliage was starting to peek up out of the ground, he was also excited when finally they grew and flourished. Over the years, he has generously sent me flowers for birthdays and Mother’s Days and I have been touched by his thoughtfulness every single time.

It became very clear to me just how confusing it must be for a child to conceptualize time on one occasion when Eric was taking a nap. He was about 3 years old. It was his habit to remove his pants and shirt and fold them on a child-size chair next to his bed, and curl up under the covers. I never taught him to do that, he just did. While he wasn’t fond of naps, he seemed to know when he really was tired, and he’d fall into a deep sleep, sometimes for several hours.

On this one occasion, he awoke, and went straight to his dresser and began taking out a new set of clothes to wear. I remarked to him that he could put those same clothes back on that he’d lain so neatly on the chair, reminding him he’d only worn them for a few hours and they were still clean. Suddenly, he looked at me with a very puzzled expression, and then, he looked out the window, and finally, looked back at me.

He asked me, “Is this tonight? Or today?”

I found myself answering, “This is today.”

I had no idea what he meant, but it suddenly occurred to me that he wasn’t sure if he’d slept “all night,” or just part of the day, and that was what he was trying to determine. I guess looking out the window was to see if it was dark or not. That one question made it abundantly clear to me why he disliked naps so much: I realized that he perceived he was losing precious, valuable time that he didn’t want to lose. It gave me a much better understanding of how he processed his day, and that one remark has stuck with me forever. I've shared it with him and let him know how it touched me.

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

(-Albert Einstein)