Turtle, name unknown, taking an afternoon constitutional around the terrace.
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I SAW THIS TURTLE FRIEND WALKING along the top of the stone wall that forms one side of our lower terrace.
I was up on the deck and looked down on him, so I leisurely went inside the house to get my camera.
One fact about turtles, they cannot outrun me.
I went down the deck steps to get to his level, then snapped a few photos of him. He made no attempt to hide from me, proving that I am the most benign creature on earth.
Can’t even scare a turtle.
Me.
• • •
WE’LL BE ON STAYCATION NEXT WEEK, so instead of dithering away here I’ll be busy doing the Memorial Day things [plus a bit more] in the real world.
But most importantly, my gentle readers, what will you be doing while I’m not here? Hmmm? This is what concerns me.
Mom was a proponent of a good lollygag and fritter.
To be clear she accomplished things in her life, but she also took the time to not be focused on her To Do List, allowing herself to let go of the need to accomplish things all hours of the day.
To wit, yesterday afternoon her daughter, moi, was out running important errands when it dawned on moi that spring had finally arrived.
The sky was medium blue with gorgeous white clouds floating across the it. The trees were sporting bright green leaves again. The temps were in the 70s so that I was wearing capris + sandals.
Thus, channeling my mother + remembering her admonishment to lollygag and fritter, I decided to toss my To Do List aside and stop at Home Depot to wander aimlessly through their garden nursery department.
I half-filled a shopping cart with herbs and annuals. Nothing exotic, just tasty and pretty plants. Then I went to pay for them at the checkout counter where the sales clerk, dispensing with your traditional “hello,” asked me:
Are you having a productive day?
And you know what, my gentle readers? Her question about productivity, asked in that moment, peeved me in a way that surprised me.
She was, I believe, harshing my mellow.
Was I not, I ask you, paying tribute to my mother’s memory by lollygaging and frittering in the garden nursery department, not bothering a soul with my mellowness?
Why yes, Ally Bean, you were paying tribute to your mother’s memory by doing that which she taught you to do.
However, putting my snitification aside, I also believe that, knowing Mom’s sense of humor, she was laughing from heaven above about my irritation over a small thing in life on earth.
Yep, she was probably lollygaging and frittering on a beautiful white fluffy cloud– like the ones I could see floating overhead while I mumbled something to the sales clerk about being productive enough… for today.
When people talk about how much they hate winters around here, it often has less to do with the snow + ice, and more to do with the lack of bright natural light and showy colors, as shown in the photo above.
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Even the trees around here, who reveal more of themselves in the winter, don’t seem cheerful– making the little boxwood bushes, who do the color green like nobody’s business, seem almost frivolous.
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Of course interspersed with the low-light days we get a day like last Thursday. A day with the sun shining brightly in the clear blue sky. A day made for looking up through leafless, snowless tree branches. A day for contrast.
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But then we’re back to a landscape filled with muted, tea-stained colors– that offer a quiet beauty that appeals to some people, like me, but depresses the heck out of others.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.”
~ Romeo and Juliet
• + • + •
The other morning I gave the shrub roses their last trim of the season. Even though the calendar says it’s fall, these bushes are officially ready for winter.
Most of the roses were faded and falling apart, but a few flowers were still buds or starting to bloom.
I saved the healthy stragglers, putting them together in a casual bouquet in a vase on the kitchen counter.
Later I noticed that the sun, shining through the window, made the water sparkle and the colors pop, leaving me with one last glimpse of summer’s beauty, while waiting for winter to arrive.
• + • + •
“Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; So ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.”
Walnut shells on the garden bench left by industrious [hungry?] squirrels.
•What do you consider is the most perfect food for you? (It can be your favorite food to something extremely healthy.)
APPLES: Natural. Sweet. Healthy. Portable. Alkaline. Reasonably priced. Easy to sauce. Nice to crisp. Wonderful to pie. Tasty to cider. Pretty to look at.
•Are you focused on today or tomorrow?
I’m usually focused on both. They are, after all, connected to each other in ways unbroken. Like the flow of the eternity symbol [figure eight on its side] my mind glides effortlessly from today to tomorrow, and then back again to today. I’m mindful of now, but with a sense of perspective about later.
• If you could interview one of your great-great-great grandparents, who would it be (if you know their name) and what would you ask?
The only great-great-great grandparent that I know of is the man who immigrated from Scotland to America. He was, supposedly, from a well-off nobleman’s family [weren’t they all?], but being a minor son with no title to inherit, he decided to come here to make his fortune.
If I could talk with him I’d ask him: why did he came here? what did he do for a living when he got here? and how did this life differ from the one he left?
• What inspired you this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.
Here’s what inspired me last week: did you know that a rainbow can happen even if it’s not raining where you are?
I didn’t, nor did Zen-Den.
On Thursday night he drove home from where he works downtown, and noticed, as he drove along, that a rainbow in the sky seemed to end at our house.
When he got home, he walked inside the house and asked me when it’d rained. I told him that it hadn’t rained here.
He said that it hadn’t rained on his drive home either… BUT there was a rainbow in the sky out front of our house now.
Of course, we both went running out the front door to see this rainbow– and by golly there it was. Large and bright and colorful.
Now how amazing is that?
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Catch up with everyone else who is answering Cee’s Share Your World Questions this week by clicking HERE.
