daydreaming of our physic garden...

things are, as usual, running at quite a clip around there......spring has wilted into summer; only the hardy will thrive in the undulating heat; strawberry season surrenders to blueberry season; the first pale green tomatoes peek out from their leafy umbrella; the broad leaves of zucchini, gourd, pumpkin open eagerly in the long sun. if we are lucky, we will soon have have warm, red tomatoes by the armful, green beans, zucchini...rosemary, basil, dill, parsley, cilantro, thyme, oregano, mint, chives, marjoram, sage. on the front porch in the evening, the scent of gardenia dances in the rising heat; the last day of school has come, and any day now the cicadas will begin their summer song. the season's storms wake us at night with raucous thunder and glorious light, rain landing like jewels on grateful soil. the children wear shoes in the yard for the bees in the clover and run screaming through the sprinkler. we have waited so long for these days, so we turn our faces to the sky, breathe in delicacies of lavender and rose, and open our bodies like a garden to the faithful sun.

we study herbs in midwifery school, gina and i, and fall in love with our plant sisters, daydreaming of our physic garden: shepherd's purse, borage, chamomile.........verbena, feverfew, burdock, lobelia........echinacea.........comfrey, evening primrose......motherwort, valerian......ladyslipper, blessed thistle. soon we will need a cauldron, mortar and pestle, black hats.

i will be converting part of my yard into a medicinal garden--plans are already underway...i feel the cloak and the staff of the healer, circling, coming near, ready to become part and parcel of me...i feel the heat of the shaman's sacred fire...i see the bear, her huge, quiet frame in the darkening woods, her patient, long breath...i am walking the labyrinth, coming closer and closer to the center...

how did we get so lucky...?

look at these beautiful children with their daddy on father's day...my family. sigh...i don't know what i did in my last life to deserve such love, but man, whatever it was, i did it up right! few things make me happier (aaaaand crazier) than looking through the lens at this group of radiant souls and trying to coax all of them into looking at the camera at the same time. this was the best shot of the evening. as you can tell, portraiture is not my forte. nevertheless, i believe this shot pretty well captures the soul of the moment, and i love it for its unfailing ability to make me howl with laughter every time i look at it.

i'm not entirely sure it was the best father's day gift to send jay out to the sun-drenched deck late yesterday afternoon to grill chicken and corn in temperatures that that would make steel melt, but the man was so positively gleeful about having all his kids over, he didn't even seem to break a sweat. sometimes i think he would even grill HIMSELF if it meant all the kids would hang out with him for a little bit.

until i became a parent, i did not understand the phenomenon of the complete and unparalleled happiness that comes simply from having everyone in the family together at the same time. everything feels so intact, so right, so indestructibly whole...

why i love my yard

"sometimes the little things become big things..."

i remember my midwife telling me this in the first weeks after caleb was born. she was referring to those things--those seemingly simple things--that become, once we have children, not-so-simple anymore. things like finding time to take a shower. things like actually clipping the toenails of both feet in the same sitting.

frankly, anything that requires more than one step and more than two minutes is probably not going to get done for a while around here, if at all. which is why i have not blogged in almost a year, and why everyone in my household is perpetually wearing dirt-stained, mismatched socks and wrinkled clothing they dug out of a laundry basket.

i'm a little ashamed to admit this, but what the hell: with the blogging, the pictures hang me up, not the writing. i just can't seem to get it together enough to find that cord that attaches my camera to my computer; download the pictures; find my favorites; figure out how to process them using a photoshop-for-idiots knockoff; dig through a sea of photos to select the one that perfectly suits my post; and, finally, upload it, all the while fending off two chimpanzees who disguise themselves as little boys--chimps who would like nothing more than to get their lollipop-sticky fingers all over my camera and computer and accomplish with stunning mastery wholesale, irreversible and expensive destruction within the span of about 45 seconds.

why don't i blog at night after they've gone to bed, you ask. and to that i respond, simply: "please." the only thing i want to do after those beloved primates go to bed is sit on my couch semi-comatose, watching mindless television, drinking chamomile tea and reminding myself that, truly, these are the good ol' days.

sometimes i go to bed at night--more nights than i care to disclose--feeling guilty about this blogging situation. not because the cyberworld is missing out on my self-indulgent ramblings, but because my boys' childhoods are careening past me at light speed, faster than i have the presence of mind to truly appreciate most days, and damnit i just want to capture some of it before i forget it. and i want to give these memories to them one day, so they can perhaps see themselves as i do: whole, blameless, completely good, infinitely loveable...

so today, after a guilt-ridden and unsuccessful nap, i got up and decided i would just. post. something. forget uploading a picture. forget using capital letters. forget proofreading. forget trying to get it just right.

forget perfection.

just do one little thing. do it messily, imperfectly, and with complete mediocrity. but, for god's sake, just do it.

summer around here

The gardenia bushes almost didn't make it through the winter, but they've put forth their white deliciousness anyway, scraggly branches and all. (You gotta admire that.)

And the blueberries were sweet. All four of them. (Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?)

Eight sweet pepper bushes. One pepper. (It's better than none!)

The tomatoes are sweet and lovely. But not if you ask Caleb. Caleb took one bite out of a cherry tomato--he was so proud of it, having come from HIS garden--and promptly threw up. (At least he tried it!)

The petunias have survived heat, drought, slugs and squirrel attacks. Resilient, those petunias.

The Crepe Myrtle (Is that how you spell it? I'm too lazy to look it up.) is divine--we set up the baby pool under its shade the other day. The boys were delirious. Then Caleb crapped in the pool and everything kinda went downhill, but it was a great four minutes before that.

My garden is still a place of healing, but more in a sweat lodge kind of way. We don't linger outside too much these days. If the heat doesn't getcha, the skeeters will.

The gourd plants have taken over. They're great! Their prolific, happy wide leaves, proud yellow flowers and zany patterned gourds are a delight.

And sunflowers. How can a gal be anything but happy with sunflowers in her yard?

the agony and the ecstacy

Hello, screaming tantrums! How very nice of you to visit. I really needed to have my eardrums rattled 17,000 times a day. I really wanted to feel brain damaged before 9 o'clock every freakin' morning.

The saving grace? Moments like this: I'm cooking dinner this evening and I overhear the boys happily romping around in the living room. There's a moment of silence, I peek in, and they're lying on the floor next to each other and Caleb sighs and says, "It's a beautiful day, Tavish..."

oh this man...

Be still, my heart. This picture undoes me every time I look at it. This is Jay, just shy of one year ago, standing at the altar waiting for me. That is the face of a man who knows the weight of what he is about to promise, of what he has already devoted himself to.

I love that face, those eyes--those brown-green eyes that held so much light as I said my vows, like a river at high noon in summer, all the rocks and fish shuddering in watered sunlight. I could not stop smiling that day--the kind of smile that sprouts in the warm pit of the gut and does not stop growing until it's blooming all over your face. I can still feel his warm hand on my back as we had our first dance. All my dreams were--and still are--coming true.

Happy (almost) Anniversary, my love. I'd marry you again and again.