somepinkflowers

haiku my heart with sanctuary

fall in love with me...
i am seduced by the sea.
my heart beats salty.

 

 

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for days and days i waited

By nature I am not a patient person.

I will flip the pancake too soon before the perfect little bubbles have formed. Every time.

Patience is illusive to me as a new born butterfly.

:-)

Which brings my lesson...

I bought the fennel. And the dill. And the parsley. Flat-leaf AND curly.

I weeded. Watered. Waited.

They came, the butterflies, and left me 10,000 white teeny pearl eggs which started to wiggle and grow.

Every morning I watched.
Every afternoon I counted.
I never actually interfered but after each storm I rushed to count again.

The numbers dwindled as they are apt to do.

Fourteen yellow, black & white striped caterpillars grew thick as my little finger then conjured lime~green chrysalis magic.

This young, black swallowtail I watched all morning long as she Became and flew away.

By nature I am not a patient person.
Having her way, Nature is patiently teaching me my lesson.

Oh happy day!

the end of summer on pine street, here in my kitchen, florida

"Watch out for mosquitoes!" my means-well neighbor yells across the narrow street that separates our lawns.

The grass is green & satisfied after a week of rain.

"There are 17 cases of West Nile in Jacksonville already," he volunteers with such excitement I think I must have misunderstood.

More than a few feet separate our lifestyles, my neighbor and me.

He is from Up North Somewhere and feels comfortable asking me the price of everything I buy as if it is his right to do so.

"How much did you pay for that _____?"' he will ask about everything he sees me carrying into my house.

"Bum-bemleyg..." I will mumble, moving on.

I am a Southern Girl and Southern Girls would rather throw up in public than ask you questions about money.

If someone is handing out Free Money, a Southern Girl might talk a gentleman into getting her share of the Free Money for her...

"Say, honey, will you go get me some of that Free Money they are handing out over there? I am busy here making some garlic mashed potatoes," a Southern Girl might drawl.

Then the kind, polite gentleman would go get the Free Money, dreaming all the while of garlic mashed potatoes.

"Here, take mine, too!" he might add if there was some dark gravy seriously involved with the garlic mashed potaotes.

Anyway, at least that is what I would do.

My neighbor always yells out the bad news with alarming regularity.

"The Weather Channel says the tropical storm will turn into a hurricane before tomorrow night!" he announces to the world so loudly I turn and look way on down the street to see if someone else is coming around the corner, maybe riding wild horses or something equally as noisy.

Maybe he thinks I am deaf from all the times I have ignored his questions about the price of things.

Inside the back kitchen door my pine table is a Museum to Honor the Current Florida Season. The collection starts out simple enough and then sort of piles on up...

Think young child with many deep pockets...

In truth we only have 2 seasons in Florida:  The hot season and the cold season.

We have the hot muggy, rainy, hurricane, wildfire season when the grasshoppers grow large and the golden orb spiders swing wide. When the mosquitoes pool around, kiss each other and then spread West Nile all over the country side.

This season lasts almost from Easter until Christmas.

For about 30 minutes sometime in November or December the weather will suddenly shock one with delight from the unexpected coolness.

Many folks are confused by this turn of events. Many suspect nefariousness.

"What was that?" we have been known to ask after the cool pleasantness has quickly passed on by.

Then northeast Florida will have dreary, damp and cold weather until about the end on March.

Seemingly dead poison-ivy will start to green up again and well-rested, hopefully friendly snakes will start to show themselves boldly by the front door.

Then it starts all over again.
I love my Florida!

Today I am saying so long to my little summer-time treats here on Pine Street. My Museum to Summer Time Florida.

Good-by to the whelk egg strand. Bonjour to the hollow conch shell.

Time to clean out the candy jars for some yummy, pure-sugar candy corn. Time to hunt down some long-needle pine-cones and, maybe, buy some harvesty smelling, calorie-free candles.  Autumn fragrancey Pumpkin*Pie or Cinnamon*Apple so I can forget the temperature is still a melty 89 degrees outside.

Being wise to the life expectancy of mosquitoes and all, I will be staying indoors for the next few days, then I will go buy vast amounts of sugary yellow and orange candy.

"Hey, there, dear neighbor!" I will shout politely across the road on my return. "Look at all the free candy I got in trade for some of my garlic mashed potatoes!"

almost always it is really up to me

"You get to choose," she said.

"There will be Pilates in the shade on the terrace behind the pool if you want to come."

If you know me at all, you know I hate to miss a thing.
I want to do it all even when I cannot.

Slowly, slowly I am learning how to choose. To choose wisely for me.

I am listening better to my head and heart and trying to select the Right Thing for me.

Sometimes others have a sweet hold on my hours.
Because they love me, because I love them back.

Mostly it is up to me to weigh things, to find the balance for myself.

I know you are the same way.

Busy weighing this and that ever minute of the day, mostly without even dwelling on it.

This is just what people do.

Seeking your balance. How to spend your time. Your energy.

Living somewhere between what you Want to do and what you Need to do.

Does it ever get any easier to decide, I do wonder?

Somethings are a Given. We have no choice.

Most decisions are not that urgent and mighty. We just float on down the stream left or right.

We seem to all end up in the right place.
Have you noticed?

Almost always it is really up to me.
Almost always it is really up to you.

To buy the boots, to savor the sweet, to say yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Taking a breath I said No to the Pilates in the shade on the terrace behind the pool.

Instead, I followed my whispering desire to strike out on my own. 

And that is when I found these sunflowers tucked away in a garden.

Growing there with onions and pomegranate trees  in a tidy plot of properly cultivated salad vegetables and small fruit trees.

Standing strong and tall under the clear Moroccan sky.

Sunflowers heavy~headed and each nodding with one billion seed~babies. They could have been anywhere in the whole wide world practically, these sunflowers.

But here they were.
Standing next to me.

sometimes i forget about it

Even as I sit here now typing this my life is in peril!

Well, maybe not in PERIL but I am certainly At Risk...

Yesterday, in spite of all that is Fine and Good in the world, I stumbled across my nemesis right here in my own back yard.

In my sweet kingdom of tropical palms and moss~drapped oaks one small & benign looking but quite formidable opponent strikes me down every single year.

Sometimes more than once a season if I do not respect Mother Nature, if I do not watch for the warning signs.

Believe me when I say my nemesis  strikes me down for I am put out~of~commission for weeks whilst I find rest in the hands of many expensive ointments and unsightly lotions.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

No matter how my eye counts the leaves before my hand touches, Poison Ivy rears its ugly head and smiles down on me with its contemptuous, poisonous oil.

""One, two, three! Don't touch me!""

I was not a Scout for 8 years for nought. I know IT when I see IT.

Still. Sometime I forget about IT.

Yesterday when the sun shone bright and the first touch of Autumn kissed the air intermittently I played in my gardens carelessly. Front and back yard. I traipse here and there innocently loving my day.

I have no one to blame but the sun and the air and myself.

Seduced by desire to prune & plant I forgot to be Mindful.

Isn't that the way with a nemesis?
One rolls along, strolls along taking Life in.

Weed the butterfly plants, harvest the fennel seeds, plant the new petunias and forget about Evil Personified.

A sudden, gentle thought:
What was that 3~leaf~thingie that whispered softly against my left arm just now?

Sometimes I get so caught up in the game of Life unplanned events occur.

I bet that happens to you, too.

Last night I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.
Washing away my sin of carelessness.

This morning I waited for the tell-tell tingling-itchy sign, knowing I might not Really Know for days.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I have decided to toss my Poison Ivy concerns into the compost pile along with the morning's spent green tea leaves.

I have a bigger garden to plant today.
Seeds of enjoyment to sow with my mom.

My mom and I play 3 games of cut~throat dominoes on Wednesdays.

There was a time when I could not beat her.
Now we are even~Steven most days.

We go for the best 2 out of 3.

Last week she beat me 2 to 1.

So many things in life can jump up and plum near scare you to death if you let them. When my nemesis spread into my ear 3 years ago I almost went deaf in that scar tissued ear.

I remember thinking, "Thank goodness I have two ears!"
Where does this Pollyanna reside within me? Why, I have no idea.

Over here, down here in my neighborhood, I shoot for the best 2 out of 3 on a daily basis.

Yes. I bet you are the same way.

tourist tuesday and shopping the passage jouffroy, paris

Every where around the world this very moment women are shopping when they should be doing something else.

Far be it from me to say WHAT they should be doing.

The issue is not what do WE think they should be doing;
the issue is what THEY think they should be doing....

Maybe they are out shopping for new shoes when they THINK they should be home baking cookies for their helpful friends at the  library or for a fundraiser at the local elementary school.

Lord knows there are not enough cookies in the world!

Maybe they THINK they should be home polishing the Reed & Barton sterling silver and washing the Spode china for an upcoming tea with Auntie Jane.

Why, I have no idea what they THINK they should be doing!

Only THEY know.

Instead they want to shop, shop, shop for The Unusual Piece for their collection...

Say, something, of Museum Quality at a local antique market.

Which is what happens to me with Alarming Regularity and which is absolutely out of my control.

I will pass by a window and something will just shout out my name...

Then I MUST go inside and photograph it, at the very least!

I bet this happens to you , too.
You get carried away by something in a shop window...

Pastry shops call to me, book stores call to me, fabric and hobby-supply retail establishments call to me.

For miles around I am known by sight, by name, by the smell of my warm American Express card toasting...

Yippeee!

Oh happy day!

Even places I have never entered lure me to their window by the very nature of their being.

I am seduced by a certain type*face painted on a shop window, a bit of lace displayed for a subtle framing effect.

Such simple things make me swooooon....

You know me.

I do not want to miss a thing.

Plus, I am like you.
I will go anywhere for the taste of Perfect Chocolate.

Dark chocolate is what powers me up for spontaneous & completely unnecessary shopping adventures.

Every where around the world this very moment women are shopping when they should be doing something else.

I love when that happens.

 

beachy postcard from paradise

{{ need more paradise  in your life? }}

last night at the first friday art walk i looked up

and took this photo of downtown St. Augustine, Florida,  just for you...

 

haiku my heart and a first flight

 
step into the world,
fresh wings drying in the sun...
{ travel far & bright! }

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