I woke at my usual time, my usual way. I guess I’m over being sick. I dressed and headed out, eager to walk in spite of the darkness.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I spotted the full moon overhead as I left the house. It rested on a bed of clouds like a pearl on fluffed cotton. I could still see it as I arrived at the trailhead. It ducked behind the clouds before I could get my camera out to get a picture of the “Hunter’s Moon”. It’s been rainy, I keep an eye on the clouds hoping to see the moon again, as I put on my rain poncho.
As I set off down the trail, the moon reveals herself. I turn off my headlamp and walk in the moonlight.
Is it a great picture? No. It doesn’t need to be. It’s enough to remind me, later, of this beautiful moment.
I put my phone away, and walk on. As if aware I’m watching, the moon stays out, lighting my way.
I get to my halfway point, grateful that I made it so far, comfortably, after being sick for days. I breathe, exhale, and relax, grinning happily to myself as I recall the pleasant hours in the studio yesterday afternoon – a glimpse of what retirement might feel like. I smile to myself, like I’ve figured something out. I’m not certain I have, but there’s the hint of an idea, and the feeling of having turned a corner, or having set down some baggage. Something to do with the weekend painting on the coast, something to do with painting at home on a weekend afternoon – something to do with making things work in a meaningful way in spite of less than ideal circumstances.
… Maybe I just needed more restful sleep to process things? I’ve definitely gotten that over the past week! 😆
I sit watching the moon pass behind the clouds, then peek out at me again. I fill up on inspiration as I sit watching, breathing, and waiting to begin again. It’s not yet time for that. I meditate and reflect awhile. I watch the moon shining down so very brightly. “Can I capture that luminous glow in pastels?” I wonder.
“Foggy Autumn Morning”, 5″ x 7″ pastels on pastelbord, 2026
I’ve been painting foggy mornings. Maybe I will paint moonlight, next, after I figure out fog?
“Strangers in the Fog”, 9.5″ x 12.5″ pastels on pastel card, 2026
The moon disappears from view. The dense clouds remind me why I reliably bring my headlamp along. My rain poncho is another welcome addition this morning, as raindrops begin to reach me, sprinkling my glasses with tiny droplets. I sigh as I get to my feet. Apparently, it’s time to begin, again.
The other day I noticed a rose had bloomed – finally! I planted “All My Loving” a couple years ago. The deer love it so much they will trample everything in the way to get to it, even reaching through the cage I had eventually placed around it.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
“All My Loving” (Rosa ‘FRYrapture’) is a hybrid tea rose bred by Gareth Fryer (UK), introduced in 2011. In pictures it is a dense dark green shrubby sort of hybrid tea rose, and quite lovely. Mine has never had the chance to develop any such lushness. 😆 The deer just keep stripping it of leaves and buds, and eating tender new canes almost to the ground.
This year I finally gave up on aesthetic considerations and put a cage around it. I was rewarded with a single rose this summer. It’s the first time this rose has ever bloomed in my garden.
“All My Loving” blooming in spite of black spot.
Planted in 2022, four years later, one single rose – it’s not anything to brag about, really, but this isn’t about bragging, at all. It is a tale of resilience. In spite of being eaten by the deer, in spite of black spot, in spite of my very lazy gardening, in spite of trying and failing for fouryears, this rose kept on trying and finally bloomed. It’s a beautiful rose, too. Worth waiting for? I don’t know. I’m glad to see it bloom. It has a lovely fragrance. I persist in thinking about how I can provide it better protection from the deer.
… Some things are worth the effort, and the work, and all the verbs…
Anyway. It’s a metaphor.
I yawn and stretch and gaze into the hazy morning sky. Is it cloudy and overcast? Is it the haze of distant wildfires? I don’t know. I know it is Monday, and time to begin again.
Why do I keep coming back to this place? Surely it isn’t just convenience, ritual, or nostalgia? (I mean… but it could be though…)
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I think about it for a long while, maybe instead of the thoughts I may have thought brought me here. Too long, maybe, between chapters of “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, which I was finishing, and pages of “The Conspiracy Against The Human Race “, which I am only just beginning, both of which feel significant and well-timed. Cycles and patterns in life and living occur often in this mortal experience. I watch the waves of the ebb tide reach the shore, and return to cross and mingle with the next row coming in. It is late afternoon.
Waves against a rocky shore.
I consider the phenomenon of the double slit experiment, and of watching the ripples of water expanding out from a stone cast into the shallow water at the edge of my grandfather’s pier on Weems Creek on a summer morning. Interference patterns fascinate me endlessly. Interference is a subtle thing, natural and irresistible, and perhaps that is why I come to this place, to listen to sea breezes whisper truths that might escape my awareness in the busy-ness of life, as I contemplate the patterns in the waves as they reach the shore?
Sometimes I just need quiet and solitude – some time alone to “hear myself think”. I have been needing it so much lately, I guess, that any effort to do something else has been met with a feeling of profound discontent, and a sense of resisting what is needful, as if I were interfering with my own sense of purpose. What feels useful and right is to sit gazing out at the sea, or to relax with a coffee by the fire. My initial reluctance to fully yield to “wasting my time” on nothing more (or less) than my own thoughts quickly passed once I yielded to it without reservation (or interference).
I sit with my thoughts. That is, after all, what I come here for. What I came here for this time, too.
The medium brown strands of my hair fall in waves down my bosom. There’s not much gray. The auburn highlights sparkle where the afternoon sun reaches me through the window, hinting at red-headed-ness in my ancestry. One notable indulgence on this trip will be a long overdue haircut with a stylist I really like. I didn’t plan ahead, and I am grateful she was willing to make an appointment for me on a Sunday morning, just before I return home.
… Shit. I miss my Traveling Partner. The poignant feeling of loss and absence strikes me hard, abruptly. Yeah… I come here alone also to escape the subtle interference patterns of love, too. It’s a bit harder to focus on me when my heart is focused on my beloved. Here, for a couple of days, my thoughts are truly my own, entirely. At home, and this is not a criticism, my thoughts and the very fabric of my life is woven and intertwined with his. Every thread connects the two of us. My heart shifts gears now, from missing him to feeling incredibly loved. His love gives me ample room to step away, care for myself, and return more whole and more capable, and more able to partner with him in this life we share. That’s so beautiful…
I smile and set aside writing for some other moment, and return to my thoughts.
(Some time later)
My thoughts became, at some point, an unexpected nap listening to the waves through the open window. I woke, soon enough to think about some dinner and a bit more reading. I exchange welcome words with my beloved. He misses me. I am missing him too. Tomorrow is soon, and I’m looking forward to his embrace when I get home.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sit in the evening light, watching the day dwindle away to night. Tomorrow I’ll begin again.
A new day is dawning. The morning is cold and misty. The trail is slick with lingering dampness from rain. No frost, but the winter chill reminds me how quickly conditions could become icy.
My eyes see shades of gray, the camera shows me blue hues. The oaks stand silent on the question of colors.
A mist develops, and begins to thicken and spread. Daybreak arrives with the fog. The day begins here, now. What will I do with it? One thing I won’t do with it is sit here for long minutes reflecting on life and watching the sun rise. First; it’s a foggy gray morning, and there won’t be much to see sunrise-wise. Second; it’s cold! I don’t prefer it for lingering outside, still and quiet. I’m already feeling the cold in my hands and in my bones. It’s a good morning to keep moving.
…I do like the walk through the fog, though. It brings mystery to the mundane and wonder to the familiar.
I breathe, exhale, and relax, as I stand and stretch. It’s as good a time as any to begin again. I look down the path into the fog. Where does this path lead? I’ll know when I get there, I suppose. The clock is ticking.
I have a garden. I find it a useful metaphor in life… for life, love, and living well. These things take real work, and benefit from planning, and a consistent effort to practice healthy practices, like the garden does. There are choices to be made regarding what to plant, where, and how to tend the garden through changing seasons. These requirements are basic to living well, too, and the lessons I learn in my garden are handy for living my life. I sip my coffee and think about my garden from the vantage point of my desk, on a completely ordinary Thursday morning.
…I’m not in my garden right now, but I kinda wish I were…
I learn a lot from my garden, practical things that guide my future decision-making like learning that timing, placement, and careful choices can really make a difference in the outcome. An example? I planted hollyhocks in front of the kitchen window, but behind a small Japanese Maple. They finally flowered this year, for the first time, and revealed what a terrible location that is for them; they grow taller than the rain gutters – or the little tree. lol
It matters where something is planted.
I’ve learned, in the garden, not to take planning too seriously. The plan is not the experience. Sometimes there’s joy to be found in an impulsive moment. A potted geranium purchased on a whim can become an eye-catching moment of beauty that brings real joy each time I pass by.
An impulsive choice can become a moment of beauty.
Choices have consequences. It’s not always obvious what those consequences will be. Something as small as an herb in a 4″ pot can become a “delightful monstrosity” that encroaches on the lawn, falling well outside the confines of the flower bed, and requiring constant pruning and attention to keep it within boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries is a useful skill, in the garden and in life.
It’s easy to misjudge the outcome of a choice. The consequences are non-negotiable.
In the garden, I’ve even learned that life isn’t always “about” me; we’re all in this together, each having our own experience. Every bird, bee, spider, worm, and visitor to the garden plays some part in the beauty of the garden.
It’s not always about me.
By far the biggest lesson I’ve taken from my garden is that I’ll rarely get more out of it than I am willing to put into it. The effort I make often determines my results. I harvest what I plant. My harvest is larger or smaller, depending on how skillfully I tend my garden, and how wisely I’ve chosen the cultivars I’ve planted. Timing matters, and seasonality too, but the thing that reliably matters most is the time I spend tending the garden.
The results in my garden are tied directly to the work I put in.
There’s no rushing the garden, really, and no real “short-cuts” to avoid the work required, or the time it may take to find some specific plant or variety that I most yearn to see in my little garden. I may know what I want (or think that I do), but lacking availability I may be tempted to compromise and settle for something different… or “less”. Are the things I want most worth working towards? Are they worth waiting for? (Sometimes they very much are!)
I once saw I rose that I instantly fell in love with, growing as a cascade of bold orange fragrant miniature roses that spilled over a short wall, covering it in beautiful blossoms. So pretty! I’d never seen an orange rose that I liked so much, and I really wanted that one in my garden…but it wasn’t part of my plan at that time, and years passed. 33 years, actually. I missed my opportunity – the nursery where I saw it closed. The breeder of that rose died. I moved, and moved again, and often did not have a garden at all. Then, I had a little garden and my own little home, and I searched high and low for this one rose that I wanted for so long… and found it.
Some experiences and moments are worth working towards, and waiting for.
Another thing I’ve learned in the garden is that there’s going to be bad weather now and then. There’s going to be rain. There are going to be storms. There may be damage to clean up. Sometimes things don’t work out ideally well. I’ve also learned that storms pass. The garden, and its near-infinite ability to recover from harm and continue to grow is a powerful metaphor for resilience, and a lesson about impermanence and the value in practicing non-attachment.
There are going to be rainy days – but they won’t be all the days.
And, like it or not, my garden teaches me to be humble. I can plan all I want, and I can do the work the garden requires in order to thrive. I can enjoy the fruits of my labor and find joy in the garden. In spite of all that, sometimes – without regard to my efforts and commitment and sense of purpose – the deer show up and eat my garden. It is what it is. So many lessons. So many changes of season in a lifetime. So much weeding and watering and sweat and work… and still, the deer may eat my garden.
Sometimes things don’t work out as planned. Sometimes the deer are going to eat the garden.
I smile and sip my coffee. The metaphors of camping and hiking give way to the metaphors of the garden. Tending the garden of my heart isn’t so different from tending the garden in which I grow my vegetables, herbs, and flowers. There are verbs involved, and my results vary. Sometimes I’ve got to begin again – and my choices (and the effort I make) really do matter. 😀 I smile to myself thinking of my Traveling Partner, and the work he’s been getting done in the shop lately. I find myself wondering if he takes life lessons from the shop, in the way I do from my garden?
…In a more practical way, I find myself planning to be in the garden this weekend, or even after work today; there is work to be done (isn’t there always?)…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a new day. Dinner on Tuesday included tomatoes and onions from my garden. I find myself wondering what may be there for tonight’s dinner? I think about the weekend ahead. I think about love. The clock is ticking – it’s time to begin, again.
