Seeing...yet not seeing

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see" ~Henry David Thoreau
"It is the familiar that usually eludes us in life. What is before our nose is what we see last." ~William Barrett


The other day I had an hour of "free time" without the kids, so I decided to take my camera and go for a drive (with no destination in mind) to take some pictures. I stumbled upon a peaceful creek, a flock of birds sitting on a telephone line, a lovely produce stand with gorgeous red tomatoes...and the most beautiful & interesting tree that I have ever seen. I knew for sure that I had never come across this most unusual tree before...the blossoms were like fine white bristles. The white gradually turned pink towards the tip and then ended with tiny yellow dots. This tree was unlike any I had glimpsed before, or so I thought! On the way back home I kept seeing this same type of tree over & over again...I must have counted 8-10 different times. Then, as I was turning into our neighborhood, I noticed this tree right around the corner from our house! I didn't need to drive miles & miles from home to find something unique & unusual...all I had to do was open my eyes and "see" what was right in front of me all the time!

Despite doing numerous Google searches, I haven't been able to identify what type of tree this is...any ideas? Anything that you have just recently noticed for the first time?

"The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." ~Marcel Proust

My Mother's Garden...

"She is a Gardener. She works with her hands. She plants seeds. She watches growth. She waters the hedges. She understands the seasons. She follows the sun. She believes in nature. She knows about life. She affirms the living. She sees poetry in each flower. She reads meaning into each day." ~Anonymous

I found this verse on the web over a year ago (I don't remember where) and I wrote it down in one of the many notebooks I have scattered around the house. I could almost believe that the author must have written it with my mother in mind! My mom is in her element when she is standing ankle deep in dirt, surrounded by nature, with a trowel in her hand. When you ask her what she wants for her birthday, her response is "mulch". She talks to the the birds...and to dogs & horses...and to flowers (and yes, she is sane). She'll carry a plastic container of earthworms that she collected from our yard to her house (which is about 3 hours away) and release them in her garden. She sees magic in the web of a spider and finds joy in the petals of a flower. My mother is one of nature's most beautiful gifts.

Summer = Blue

I thank you God for this most amazing day... for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes." ~e.e. cummings

When you think of summer, what color comes to your mind? For me it's the color blue...in the summertime I'm surrounded by it! The gorgeous deep blue cloudless sky, the clear aqua pool water, the endless blue of the ocean, the beautiful blooms of my hydrangea bush, my electric blue beach cruiser bike and the delicious blueberries from the farmers market. It's no wonder that when I was growing up I always had my bedroom painted periwinkle blue!

Stop along the way...

"walk in the rain, smell flowers, stop along the way, build sandcastles, go on field trips, find out how things work, tell stories, say the magic words, trust the universe. ~ B. Williamson

Summer afternoon...

"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language" ~ Henry James

Every summer I make it a point to re-read the "Gift from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her words are still so relevant today...more than 50 years after they were written. She talks about simplifying your life and how to "remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel"

Lindbergh recognizes the importance of having "quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself. It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one's own." For me I find that alone time either with books or with my photography (and my computer).

One of the many reasons that I love summer is that there is empty space on my calendar pages. From September to early June it seems as though there is not a blank square to be found! In "Gift from the Sea" there is a passage that goes "Here there is time; time to be quiet; time to watch the heron...time to look at the stars or to study a shell" This summer if I could give you a present it would be this book...and the gift of time.