Wednesday, July 19, 2017

My place to be...

What an amazing, joyful moment of the day is, when I get to go out to the front porch and sit under the sizzling hours of mid afternoon, to just be... to only listen to the familiar sounds of summer, the songs of birds, and the high-pitch hum of cicadas.


Did you know that cicadas start to emerge only after a 17-year wait to mate?  And where was I 17 years ago when, here, on these same woods and trees this brood of cicadas was already waiting for 'today'?  Nature certainly never ceases to amaze me.


The Annabelle hydrangeas have grown more, and expanded beyond themselves even more this year.   Unlike the blue and pink hydrangeas, Annabelle blooms every year even after a severe pruning and intensely cold winters. The huge, white drumstick blooms appear in profusion without fail every summer.


Had I known how reliable these flowers are and how much I'd loved them, I would had planted them as a hedge in front of the holly bushes by our front porch, where instead I chose to plant that row of Iceberg roses, which have never done well, and have always adopted that spindly, leggy appearance since the very beginning.



This afternoon I went outside and collected bunches of hydrangeas to make bouquets... 



It was hot, but under the canopies of trees that protrude from the woods it felt comfortable and tepid and I found myself mystified by the sounds of summer, and the dark emerald shades of the woods, quiet and timing with life as they are.  


This is what I love about summer, the strength and vigor of it.  The being wild and slow, old and yet growing young buds of dreams. For me, it is a magic that must be written in the old pages of my soul. We are all wanderers on this earth, and my heart is full of wonder, and my soul deep with dreams...


I wake up every morning and go to work, and miss those magical hours of my days... at 8:00, and 9:00 and then again mid morning around 10:00 in the little white cottage.  I miss my home, being able to enjoy my freedom... miss my feathery friends; the fishes in the pond, the squirrels and their shenanigans around the garden and the mystifying sounds of the woods... even at the office, my heart is silently the one with the messy hair, the dirty feet and that wild sparkle in its eyes... 


Even with the huge amount of mosquitoes and insects that come with this wild, hot humid life of the south, I'm still so much in love with my garden. Love our little white cottage and its quiet surroundings, love the peace I find here, always welcoming and comforting...


The minute I enter this door, I am at peace with my soul again... 


“I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before.  It was homesickness.  Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.” ― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag


5 comments:

  1. A beautiful post Cielo. As ever. Mimi xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those hydrangeas are just lovely! I've never tried Annabelles. Hydrangeas grow everywhere around here, even wild on the sides of the roads. I think they must really like the climate, but they're just the common ordinary lavender blue variety with huge basketball sized blooms that start out white and eventually turn to varying shades of blue. I don't know how well other varieties of hydrangeas would do here. Recently I bought a little starter plant on Ebay of a variety called Vanilla Strawberry. Have you seen it? It's spectacular. The colors and shape of the blooms are incredible, sort of looks like puffs of cotton candy. My son brought it down to me on his recent trip here. It's already grown quite a bit in just two months and I'm crossing my fingers that it will do as well as the ordinary hydrangeas do. Un abrazo!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How lovely... I think I've seen that hydrangea, but only on the Internet... I love the shades of the ones we grow here... from light lavender to blue to deep purple, and then some pinks and what I call 'the vintage hues', for a combination of faded shades that resemble something old... so pretty! Hope yours would do well!

      Cielo

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...