Over the Water

Don't you just love ferries? I think they are magic. Living on an island, they are also pretty necessary. This has been a wonderful summer on the island. Filled with outdoor Shakespeare, picnics, sleepovers and the comfort of being wrapped in love by my dear friends. This morning I felt Summer's lovely frayed edges as Autumn shook out her petticoats in the early morning air. Last magical days of summer...Better get back out into it...

Safety and Raspberries

There is a young deer who has taken to napping in my back yard. He lifts his head when I go outside, but doesn't run away. He also eats fresh raspberries and is quite at home. We have a silent agreement about the roses. Sometimes I just watch him out my window as he wanders lazily about. I am struck with how utterly safe he seems to feel.

We all need to feel safe. At home. We need to be able to take a nap. To rest. To simply be. I am honored that my friend seems so comfortable with me. (I hope all my friends do as well, even the two legged ones)

Home Sweet Home

We all need a place to call our own. It doesn't really matter how big or small, a house, an apartment, land, a room of one's own. What matters is a corner in the world that is special to us, that is our nest. Home is where the heart is? Well, I take my heart wherever I go, and everywhere I go isn't exactly home. So what is it? I watch the birds return time and again to their home, their nest. And I think it is simply a matter of that place you return to. A place that wraps itself around you in comfort. That makes you feel safe. And for me, the place that sings to my heart, where I plant my garden, invite friends and family, laugh too loud or cry too long; that is home.

And everything is new again

There was a time, mid winter, when I could not imagine blossoms. Another hard bout in the hospital with Mum and that feeling of helplessness. But, Mum, cat that she is with all nine of her lives, is now planning her garden and I look out on the farm and it has exploded into petals. The fruit trees are waking up and stretching, the bulbs have all thrust themselves forward and my darling robins are everywhere. So, another lesson in trust. I am planning an outdoor Shakespeare festival and suddenly the world is full of possibilities. But right now, most important, is that the garden calls. I cannot help but answer.

Spring on the Wing

I've been watching the birds every morning. The robins are back! And there is a plethora of twittering, singing, flying, dancing birds of all colors everywhere at once. Quite cheeky, some of them. It has become my morning ritual to have tea bundled up on the porch and just watch and listen. Suddenly Spring is in the air. Quite literally. The air is rich with blossoms. The bulbs have all just thrust themselves forward and I am somehow convinced that the birds, the harbingers of Spring's promise, have enticed the flowers to show themselves. In some ways it has been a long winter. And to know my mum will see yet another spring means the world to me. It's impossible not to feel a lift, a feeling that Emily Dickinson was right and that hope really is the thing with feathers.