A story of wildflowers and my need to write

I am so fortunate, and happy to have my computer with me again; redeemed from the dead and restored to its original beginnings.  Wouldn't it be fantastic if the same concept could be applied to our tired bodies and minds--to be restored to that utterly wholly, indissoluble beginning of humankind?  Blessed would be that day.

It is not so much having lost all those files and photographs--remembrances of a life and thoughts of a mind that otherwise would be an obscured and encoded thing, if it wasn't for the magic of words, than not being able to write for so long.  Having my computer with me again, it simply means being able to decipher my soul...  It means I can write... I can sing out the songs I keep deep in my heart, complicated songs I can only bring forth through words... I can shake off every sad thoughts or feelings as I write, my fears disappear, my tongue can utter words unspoken.  Writing is life to me. But I am going slow this time, not wanting to hurry and make any mistake and have that awful virus contaminate my files again... so I won't be working on anything important, and will only write that what my fingers, moved by unreasoning thinking may bring forth...

I go out to the garden, pull out weeds, transplant and divide perennials, soak in the simple, uninterrupted beauty shrouded in dense, pure greens that surround our little cottage, and let sunshine sip through my pores.

Then, satisfied for the moment, I would come in and sit by my computer again and again... as if this 'mythical' instrument was a live thing; a dear someone with whom I've been reunited.  How necessary and compulsory these simple routines are to me... I love how Anais Nin puts it:  "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect".

The potted geraniums are healthy and growing glorious pompoms of flowerets.  I love the pudgy scent of geranium lingering on the air as I go by.  Today I discovered some type of a vine growing wild behind the garden.  Something very similar to a grapevine, with smooth, shinny leaves with its five lobes and the naked veins around its sinus.  I will keep an eye on it and see how it grows, or what it grows.  I have filled most of my flower pots with simple perennials this year.  Dessert Eve Yarrow and purple Vinca, which have already beautifully bloomed for the second time.  These plants are so truth worthy and they will come back year after year... I love their simple beauty and intense colors of some perennials that could be well be called wildflowers.

The white impatient flowers are expanding magically.  I bought three tiny pots as soon as they show up on late spring and divided them to several pots... all pots are now brimming with these glorious little jewels.    

What I have come to love most about this time of year are the ferocious amount of wildflowers found around our cottage.  They represent a nuisance in some point, but it always bring a spark of magic to my heart to go around the property looking for these glorious spark of color growing naturally and happily and without any fuss whatsoever...

My childish woman's heart making gentle rings of joyful waves like a raindrop into infinite blue waters as I drag my soul around the outskirts of the woods hunting for treasures--what new wildflower is in bloom, what new song sings the wind...  I most look like a wild mad woman, garden shears on hand wild hair blowing in warm breezes as I cut wildflowers wherever they may be found.  Who would do that?  I've to wonder!  But they're such treasure in pretty vases around the house...

Yesterday, I happened upon the most fascinating discovery--a glorious wild rose growing profusely among all the shrubbery and crazy undergrowth out there.

The scent--sweet, and magical and unique was what took me to it.  

I have filled many vases with these small rosettes.

I have so much I want to say, so many ideas, words, pictures I keep on my mind that I want to share... I hope I won't bore you and I hope you won't mind if you see me here way too often from now on, but I've been saving all... all what have transpired in my little world and life throughout this months, and moments... and I must write and let my days be stamped on my blog as a remembrance of lovely days and days not so lovely, but all of them safe by my beliefs and hopes, forevermore.

Thank  you for listening to my ramblings, my precious friends.

Cielo

In a garden I love and back to blogging...

Where should I start?... where, where has time gone to?  And what faces hide behind those silent monstrous souls of the cyberspace, who's greed had left me fluttering around my days in a wild state of dumbness; like a single-winged angel stripped clean of words and moments lost? 

The virus that had infected my computer and encrypted every one of my files a while back, somehow followed me; like the Yellow Fever of ancient times, and it also infected my husband's old computer, which I had borrowed to continue my writings.  And thus, two computers and hundreds of files lost, I am starting anew.

The night sky gave me vertigo. The canyons blew my mind.  But I'm out of those icy mountains and down into the emerald valley again--so I hope.  Life is but an endless series of little details ain't it... proceedings, actions, trials, thoughts, dealings... and the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them will follow us.  Each of us lives with consequence and we all bear the burden and bliss of lessons in our hearts.

I've been working outside as well as inside without stop... planting, digging, tearing down, building up, weeding... weeding a lot, and painting furniture too.  Changing things around in the house and in the garden... like a mad woman.  Like a woman who runs with wolves.  I love this time of year and as spring moves forward in its fruitful, creationist ways, so does my body and mind.  I feel the energy of nature flowing in me, inspiring me to create, to work... work... to make my dreams come into fruition.  Blood flowing in my veins, muscles tightening in my body as I accomplish millions of things in a day's worth.

The crape myrtle bushes are into broad leafiness.  The lilies are about to pop open into tangerine flowers and the roses are coming on strong.  The privet, thick and dark and green is filled with voices and sounds I try to decipher, but escape understanding.  The woods are filled with so much grace.  It's sheer magnificence no matter where you look here.  We have plants growing out of every nook and cranny.  We need more space which is, I suppose, why we want to cleanout further into the woods.

Every morning when I'm out here I brace myself and almost cry out at the glorious width of sky that presses out in all direction, and the tall trees striving to reach that blue openness above themselves; trees whose arms and hands stretch out and clap, and trees whose emerald green shaggy heads sway with morning breezes and move backward and forth in glorious dances... can you see them, oh can you see them dancing; talking among each other way up there?

Almost every morning while at our breakfast, we have been graced by the swift visit of a blue-throated hummingbird whose early morning habits of personal hygiene brings him to the pond and the rabbit of some Alice in Wonderland story has been coming by again frequently...  I delight in what I see and hear and marvel at the fortune of having all this free time on my hands and be able to be part of the abandon and inventiveness of Nature... as free as Nature is, and coming to it with the same stanza and same joyful abandon.

And well, here I am again in my happy place.  Hoping that I'd be spared of contamination this time and this horrible computer virus will pass by me, like some lethal fumes in its journey of Hades, without noticing me.

Thank you for your emails and friendly comments during my absence... I am glad to be back~

Rainy days

And thus it seems that the month of April will continue to amaze us as it takes us further down into rivers of rain. I have been collecting thoughts; getting sprinkled down from heaven as I go about the garden pulling out weeds and desperately trying to save my roses from whatever diseases come with rain and dwell in precious supple young leaves.

Regardless all this rain, however, I have still been able to go out for my daily jogs as much as I can. Ruby comes by every morning, and whenever I don’t feel too enthusiastic about going out, she would encourage me to do so with her precious little face and playful disposition. I don’t know who Ruby’s owners are, nor do I know what her real name may be, so ‘Ruby’ it is whenever she’s with me. ‘Ruby’, because of the lovely deep coppery-red glimmer in her fur…

Some people in our neighborhood let their pets roam freely around here, and sometimes two more dogs would join in… a mellow, big yellow Labrador Retriever and his leader companion, a grumpy little thing of a Schnauzer mix-- always barking at me as we all go up and down hilly roads.

My body and mind are changing and I’m suffering through all kinds of menopause symptoms lately—hanging in there, like precious raindrops nesting on the round cups of Sedum leaves.

Hostas are appearing everywhere in the shady garden too...  

Hostas make me happy... 

I love their smooth, large leaves and variegated colors, and I love that they’re so easy to divide and get established...

The purple globes blooms of the ornamental alliums are starting to appear too. What a lovely welcome they are in my perennial gardens. And the best part—they multiply naturally, and can be left untouched in the same area for years.

I’ve been enjoying some untamed delightfulness from around the wild garden lately...

Making lovely little bouquets that I would place here and there as I please...

Wildflowers are such amazing little things… such deep colors they have, and they can certainly last longer than most cultivars.

If they would only stay put in their rampant nature and grow in assigned places only... but then again they would not be called 'wildflowers' and won't be as exuberant and free and lovely as they are.

One day back in January this year, out of the blue I felt this strange urgency to save all my computer files outside my computer. Little did I know then that soon after that my computer was to be hacked and I was to lose every file I had there. How fortunate and blessed I am to have followed this importunateness. As it happened, I was lucky to save part of the book I have been writing for the last year. But all that work of February and March have been permanently lost forever. I’ve been struggling with my need to retake the task of writing and rewriting what I lost, or just simply forget about it for good, as I don’t feel too willingly to go over what took me two months of my life to do… not for now anyways. So I suppose this project will have to wait for now or for ever. How is one to conquer discouragement? I know... I know it too well... I should offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise to God, for it could have certainly been so much worse.

Compendium of days

Hours, days, time passing by—time dissolving into nothingness before the astounded eye. Time simulating the flowers of the field. Like grass, time withers and falls from one day to the next… and so do we. Our days are like grass—as a flower of the field. We blossom like wild flowers. And our glory withers and falls before we can even realize the speed in which time imprisons us and takes us with it. And here I am, astounded too; like a bird my heart uplifted in hymns of praises to the Great-I-Am. For even if our bodies are like the grass, still our eyes shall see beyond the “Mountain”.

It’s been raining oceans around here and the woods beyond the garden have come alive with myriads of emerald greens and bright jewels. It is almost unreal to look at this brilliantness and realize that only yesterday the world was bare and thin.

When it is not raining, I am living out here. I sit here for hours and read and think and drink in every singularity surrounding me—the way Nature seems to hug me, the sun shining down from a dazzling blue sky, greeting me again and again; noises moving around me; swishing sounds behind my back, things scurrying through the foliage; the sound of thrashers foraging for food on the wood’s floors among the big dead leaves; the sound of small animals moving by; the twits and busyness of birds, the song of peepers in the creek and pond.

Sometimes I like to imagine that I’m in the jungle somewhere.  I can hear the monkeys high in the treetops collecting bits of branches; whooping and shrieking and making a great deal of noise up in the pillowy surface of the canopy.  I hear the shrieks and howls and the bushes around me keep shaking and rustling, and I immerse myself so deep in these thoughts that I come to believe I’m in a strange place, with dangerous animals, and for a zilch of a moment I held my breath, deliciously frightened.

 

Dreaming and idleness are not just about the only things going on around here; there’s also plenty of work too. Thus, it happened that I, and my helpers, the birds, have scattered myriads of zinnia’s seeds everywhere.  They have been sewn in well designed areas and places I wish to see them grow, but birds have ideas of their own, and thus I’ve been discovering zinnia seeds growing in surprising places…  I’ve decided I won’t be pulling them out any longer and let nature takes its course.

I’ve also opened and cleaned a new area further down into the woods were I am creating another flowerbed, because that’s still part of our land and even if I fear the wilderness won’t cooperate with me, I am still willing to work, and I am running ahead of hopelessness too, as mosquitoes and poisonous leaves, haven’t yet been woken up from their winter slumber, are not interfering.  This is good.  This is the best time of the year to enjoy the outdoors and it is the first time since we moved here that we have been able to dine outside again… outside, under the big patio umbrella, which is now, along with the table and chairs, moved to a more appropriate location; where is shadowy and cooler. 

I’ve been making my own organic garden sprays and I’ve been spraying my roses with this concoction of goodness and they are looking healthy and strong.  I’m planning on trying growing roses from cuttings and if I do succeed on this I will fill my world with roses once again.  The pond is again working and running and spring peepers have found yet another home away from the creek.  I love to hear their soothing songs and hear them communicate with one another from one end of the garden where the creek runs deeper, all the way to the pond.  I am happy with this outcome and always at awe with Nature, which seems to know better than us humans in every way.

The orange peel cat repellant concoction I’ve been spraying on the settee in our front porch seems to be working well.  Some initial signs after that first spraying told me that the cat had come again, but I haven’t seen anything unusual after that, and I’m hoping that I won’t either ever again.

I know that this is quite a long post, and most probably of no interest whatsoever for many of you, but I use my blog mainly as a personal journal to help me deciphered my days, and I haven’t been able to do so in a while.  My computer got hacked.  Hackers encrypted every file I ever had and demanded ransom to recuperate them.  It is a terrible virus and an awful crime.  Losing years of files, including the book I’m presently writing isn’t the end of the world, but this has caused great pain.  As it is, I am on a borrowed computer for now and it might be another while until I can get mine back, if at all.  In the mean time, I hope you'll enjoy your days wherever you are.

I have so missed my time with you all.

Love

Cielo