21 July 2008

Late Afternoon

Late afteroon, cool breeze, warm sun. The lavender drying on the grape arbor scents the yard.

I had a heart attack scare last week and feel now perhaps as a butterfly just out of the chrysalis feels, new, not ready to fly. It turned out not to be the heart after all, but a confluence of several moderate problems that together produced astounding transforming pain. I now have various prescriptions, and the assurance this will not interfere with my plans for my life. 





But it is a good time for sitting under the arbor with the lavender, the lemon trees, the cats, the baby birds. The roses, except for the Abraham Darbys and the rugosas, are resting, though Pat Austin and Just Joey are covered with buds, St. Cecilia has a few, and Winchester has begun to bud. The little Tradescants that bullied everyone else up in the main bed have been quite subdued since they were moved beside the street. The old yellow rugosa has failed to bloom for the third year and will have to come out. The
rosa mulligani from Greg, now in its fourth summer, abruptly exploded the first of the month, having climbed six feet in the last year. Until I moved to Seattle in 2003, I had never gardened, and when Pierre gave me a Sally Holmes as a present for my first birthday here, I was bemused. Then Rosalind and Greg gave me more.


After a lifetime of anxiety and anxieties, attention to the roses, and learning their individual idiosyncrasies, has brought me finally to content.






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