Invisible

"If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?" If I return from a trip a day early, and no one knows I am here...hmmm. What could I do when no one knows I am available?

I am enjoying found time, a day when I should have been winging my way from Dallas to Little Rock to Baltimore and home. Instead, JC providentially noticed (as we approached the gate for our flight from Albuquerque to Dallas Tuesday afternoon) that a non-stop flight to Baltimore (where we'd left our car) was boarding. Although JC had business in Dallas and environs, I was faced with a flight to Dallas and a 4:45 AM wake-up call to make my Baltimore flight the next morning. I scrambled and managed to get a seat (in an exit row, no less) to Baltimore, and was home by 10 PM Tuesday night.

So what do you do when you are invisible? I've read magazines. I've done a little grocery shopping. I've puttered in the garden. I turned on the fountain. I'm thinking about getting some plants for my windowboxes. I'm thinking about some decorative ideas I happened upon during our trip. I'm uploading photos. What I'm NOT doing? Sorting through the accumulated mail.

Doing laundry. Answering phone calls. Paying bills. Cleaning. Except for the scattered kitty litter that Jake graciously distributed over the floor, the rug, and yes, even the coffee table. (I don't even want to think about that.) There will be enough time for all that when I rejoin my world tomorrow. For now, I am drifting, like the shadow I am allowed to be, if only for today. Invisible.

September 1

At last! As I write this, I am at long last sitting at the table in my 'garden' at our new house. It is lovely. We moved in early July, and between weather (horribly hot) and neighbors (who were having their patio redone--which meant a 4-week long parade of workmen and wheelbarrows trundling through my patio each morning) there has not been a quiet morning to carry my tea and my laptop outside and sit, listening to morning noises and making a few of my own clickety-clicks on the keyboard.

Today is all clear blue sky and cool breezes. While I have yet to figure out exactly what the patio will look like (there ARE no planting beds to speak of, so container gardening is all I will be able to do, unless I enlist my own parade of workmen to alter this brick box...) I have a fountain and several large pots of green things and flowers, three trellises, a bench and some chairs and a table. Also a few sturdy weeds popping out from between the bricks, but what are weeds if not reminders that there is no such thing as perfect?

I do have visions, just as I have for the house. Some of those have been put in place, others will wait for a while, percolating until their outlines solidify. For now, I am happy with some quiet time in a friendly place without interruption: my garden.

Evidence of Life

The brick box they called a garden

is coming into focus now.

The weed-packed concrete boxes

that crown the wall

will have to come down.

Planted with lavender or rosemary

like spokes around the wheel

of the fountain’s base,

they will anchor a garden

of herbs and annuals,

an oasis of green in that brick desert.

My geraniums already blaze

on the table and in pots

on the trellises that flank my bench.

Purple petunias explode

from the urns in the corner,

and holly bushes guard the gate.

My lamb curls up behind the impatiens

and bunnies hide amid the leaves.

The stone garden god waits on the chair

for his throne to be established,

and for the first time since we arrived,

today

I see a bumblebee.