All Things Seem Possible In May

EVENTIDE

Dark and light
striking
each other,
vividly etching wild colors
through the horizon.

The charm of sunset
makes me want
to scurry home.

― Tara Estacaan

Golden hour is my favorite time of the day. The softness of colors yet astonishingly vibrant and the peaceful feeling it brings. As if saying: Let go, relax, prepare yourself, it is time to rest.

 

Cute Vibrant And Oh So Very Round

I saw the above photo online with the title caption and I thought: That’s it! Finally, a description I could accept. I don’t like to hear pretty, sexy, beautiful, charming. etc. etc. Interesting is the only option I considered in the past alongside the likeness of Pumba which I happened to believe closely resembled how I look like though lately, even that is not an alternative anymore. Anyway, I saw the image of this Robin and I yelled: That’s how I like to look like. Exactly like that. Cute Vibrant And Oh So Very Round. Wonderful!

POOR MARCH

It is the HOMELIEST month of the year. Most of it is MUD, Every Imaginable Form of MUD, and what isn’t MUD in March is ugly late-season SNOW falling onto the ground in filthy muddy heaps that look like PILES of DIRTY LAUNDRY. ― Vivian Swift

Well, I don’t agree. Especially now that almost everything becomes evergreen due to global warming no doubt. Even deciduous trees and plants somehow failed to shed their leaves entirely. The photo above and below I’ve taken both in February 2015 and look how beautiful they are. And there is no snow this year aside from occasional night frost which right away disappear in the morning. We had more foggy days and nights though that linger compared to other years. The temperature now is in most days double-digit which is on its own very alarming but who noticed? In my experience, December and January are the most depressing months of the year. Cold, wet, windy and dark. By February the days get longer and the garden is starting to wake up. No, March for me is okay. That is when I start pruning the roses and from then on, the work never stops.

The False Grinning Faces We All Wear

“I’ve never been lonely. I’ve been in a room — I’ve felt suicidal. I’ve been depressed. I’ve felt awful — awful beyond all — but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me…or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I’ve never been bothered with because I’ve always had this terrible itch for solitude. It’s being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I’ll quote Ibsen, “The strongest men are the most alone.” I’ve never thought, “Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I’ll feel good.” No, that won’t help. You know the typical crowd, “Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?” Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars because I didn’t want to hide in factories. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have. Let’s drink more wine!”

― Charles Bukowski

I am made for Autumn

Yes. The colors, the atmosphere, the way the light slant through the trees and on everything. The sky mix of hues, lavender orange pink purples and blues… The chilly breeze and evening fires, the rain, the smell of earth, late-blooming perennials shorter days and early nights. All of those makes me feel peaceful and warm.

Untangling My Chopsticks

“As my grandmother discovered long ago, the Japanese excel in cultivating nature. Their gardens come in numerous styles, including paradise gardens, dry-landscape gardens, stroll gardens, and tea gardens. Although each type has its own goal, tray all share the same principle: nature is manipulated to create a miniature symbolic landscape.
A paradise garden is meant to evoke the Buddhist paradise through the use of water dotted with stone “islands.” Dry-landscape gardens, usually tucked away in Zen temples, use dry pebbles and stones to create minimalist views for quiet contemplation. Stroll gardens offer changing scenes with every step, a pool of carp here, a mossy trail there, and a small bridge to link them both, while a tea garden provides a serene path to take you from the external world to the spiritual one of the teahouse.”

― Victoria Abbott Riccardi

A Garden Is Its Own Universe

Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

A Privileged Space

“A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space — a place not just set apart but reverberant — and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry.” ― Michael Pollan

And Here Is June Again

Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.” 
― Pablo Neruda

Between Two Places

When you grow up by the sea, you spend a good deal of time looking at the horizon. You wonder what on Earth the waves might bring – and where the sea might deposit you – until one day you know you have lived between two places, the scene of arrival and the point of departure. ~Andrew O’Hagan 

I grew up by the sea and Indeed I spent a good deal of time looking at the horizon sitting on the breakwater my father had built waiting for the water to reach my feet. I never wonder what on earth the waves might bring but I once had a friend who gave me this copper ring which he made himself but had to throw it in the sea to keep me from being drowned by someone who wanted the ring so much. He said the sea will give it back to me when the time is right. The waves will deposit it at my feet wherever I am.

It didn’t happen of course and until this very moment I don’t know yet if I have lived between two places and I’m not sure if I understand where are the scene of arrival and the point of departure and how on earth I am going to recognize these places when the time comes. Perhaps it’s about being born and dying. Maybe the day you will understand you have lived between these two points is when you realized it’s your last day here on earth and it’s time to say goodbye.

The sea didn’t deposit me anywhere but a plane did. I traveled by air to hell in order to be saved. In a sense, I did live in two places and experienced both worlds. None of them is an ideal place to live but I never complain. There are worst situations than mine. There is no horizon to look at where I am now. In order to see it, I have to travel far, and when I reach there the view is often disappointing. How I wish I could say how I long for the peace and quiet of my childhood when sitting on a breakwater whole day was my only concern, but I would be lying. So, I would wish for peace of mind instead and hope it comes before I know I have lived between two places.

Stairway To Heaven

What curious structures one encounters when one dares to venture further away from one’s cave.

D. my partner in crime ascending to nowhere in particular.

The Beauty Of Spring

Greetings from my garden.