19 May 2020: Daily Pretty

Oliver’s art teacher is knocking it out of the park with Zoom learning. He has done some really neat projects in recent weeks. Look at his nature mandala of today.

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What would I do without my yard and garden?! The wonder of alliums, peonies, anemones, ferns, bees, worms, the birds, dahlias, things that aren’t classified perennials but are so happy they come back year after year anyway…Magic all around.

And my pretty girl.

Ruthie

Ruthie

Miscellany

It’s been a long while since I’ve been here, y’all.

Oliver graduated from 4th grade, and we enjoyed our eighth annual family trip to Wrightsville Beach with Tom’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and their darling girls.
Children are dying under pathetically inattentive, cruel “protective” custody on our southern border.
Trump is flirting with bombing Iran. His base is enabling his insane idiocy and excusing his many assaults.
Yet another has credibly accused Trump of assault -this time of RAPE.
I leave on Thursday to move the boys to summer camp, and I fly home on Saturday to commence six weeks without them.
Tom is soon to start a new job so we’re not traveling this summer.
Instead we are renovating our dining and family rooms and relearning how to rest and relax.
Nutmeg still doesn’t like Ruthie, but she is holding her own, and things are slightly better between them.
I have wonderful new writing students and last week taught a fun, energetic Canning 101 class.
I am deeply worried about and appalled by much of America.
Tom and I are driving to Brooklyn on Sunday in further pursuit of my passion for midcentury modern, Scandinavian-inspired design.
The fireflies are out, and my blackberry bush is thriving, and the orange calla lily I planted with hope two Junes ago is blooming magnificently.
It is PRIDE month, and love is love, and let’s just cheer that!
Today is Bourdain Day, and I miss the light that Anthony Bourdain was in the world, and I hate that depression lies so believably to so many.
I am so very tired, so very worried, and have so many books I hope I get through this summer.

In the meantime, I am thinking about connection and trust, relationships and self-protection. I am thinking of how wonderfully connective vulnerability and gratitude can be, and yet how exposed such porous borders can render us.

Here’s to peace and goodness, faith and the best of the unknown. Here’s to six weeks unplugged and in nature, to New York City and loving cats, to friends and also boundaries, and to the ways that appreciation and trust can make life richer.