There are few things I adore more than the strong, sweet fragrance of lilies.  Recently my husband and I attended an engagement party for one of his cousins and they had huge arrangements of flowers everywhere.  I remember thinking they were lovely.  On the way out my aunt by marriage encouraged me to take some home.  I was going to refuse until she said they were just going to go in the trash!  I then gladly accepted and asked my husband to get one as well.  I wanted to bring it to our babysitter hoping she’d enjoy them, but I think her allergies may extend to flowers.  Heaven knows the woman is already a saint for braving our house with her cat allergies.  So we wound up with two arrangements which looked even more enormous in our own house.  I woke up the next morning and the heady scent of beautiful lilies greet me as I made my way down the stairs.  Even my car smelled heavenly with just a few dropped petals from the night before.  My little one noticed it, too and we decided to leave them.  All weekend long we were wreathed in the rich scent of Stargazers and it was pure bliss.  They must have been delivered fresh just before the party because they remained upright and beautiful for days.  When Monday rolled around I realized I still needed to get flowers for my little one’s class.  This was her turn to provide snacks and fresh flowers for the week.  Then I realized we had lots of perfectly beautiful blooms already and so I set about removing them from their green floral foam and put some in a vase to bring to school.  I still had some to keep and, to my surprise and delight, when I came to pick her up, I noticed the flowers were everywhere!  They were lining the windowsills and graced just about every available surface in her large classroom.  The American botanist Luther Burbank once said:

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”

That’s exactly how I feel … flowers are indeed sunshine for the soul.

I never played in a sandbox as a kid.  I have not really ever cared for the gritty stuff, particularly in a landlocked city.  But my little one has been lucky enough to visit an ocean every year since her birth.  Perhaps that is why she is more drawn to it than I.  We were at the park on a rare day that was not sizzling hot and I was completely shocked to discover they had built in this subtly clever, winding trench of sand.  After all the times we had been there I had never even noticed it!  But she found it and soon made friends with two fraternal twins playing construction with their trucks.  Now I understood why she wanted to bring her beach pail and shovel.  Sitting on the stone wall in the shade I watched in contemplative silence as the three of them played side by side, each happy in their own little world.  I found myself thinking about the sands of time.  Like an hourglass, it seems to trickle much more slowly when you’re younger.  One of the beauties of children is I think they allow you to slow down as well.  The great English poet William Blake must be on my mind lately.  I was reminded of my favorite quote of his:

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”

The English poet William Blake once said, “No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.”  Both of my parents wanted that for me and they also both loved to feed the birds.  When I got married and we bought our home I could not wait to set up a bird feeder.  I eagerly anticipated the tranquility that watching them pause to eat would bring.  However it quickly became more like watching a gang fight.  The mourning doves, which I had always assumed were peaceful, became horrible bullies and crowded out the cardinals, mockingbirds, and even my beloved (and somewhat aggressive) blue jays.  We had the most well-fed morning doves around.  Pretty soon they became freakishly huge and started to resemble hordes of quail.  The poor little finches and sparrows could not even collect what was on the ground.  Fat squirrels (whom my husband calls “blub blubs”) hogged the bottom around the feeder gathering crumbs with all the desperation of a group who had just broken out of a fasting retreat.  Then we found out the cute tree rats were partaking from the feeders at night and that’s when the hubs said we had to stop.  I knew he was right but it broke my heart not to feed the birds anymore.  Devoid the chattering of squirrels and the cooing of mourning doves it has seemed sadly quiet.  We used to call our side yard “cat TV” because there was always something flitting about to watch.  Our cats would crouch down, make weird noises, and stalk their prey with twitching whiskers from the comfort of the den.  Then a visit with my family in Arizona made me realize:  hummingbirds!  I could at least feed them without bringing in anyone else.  Eagerly I came back home and made their nectar, a simple solution of one part white table sugar to four parts water.  The feeder is red to attract them without using any dye and it even has an ant blocker so the hummingbird’s nectar cannot be infiltrated and stolen.  I’ve had it up for months now and so far nothing.  I still keep watching and hoping; they say it takes awhile.  But I must confess, all this waiting is for the birds.

Times have changed so much since I was a kid.  We ran wild until it was time for supper without a care in the world.  My mother’s only qualification was that when she called me I had better come RIGHT then.  She made dinner from scratch every night and I came back tired and happy from playing tetherball, catching bugs, and climbing trees.  The world is a different place now:  there need to be scheduled “play dates”, there are new strains of awful mosquitos, and sadly kids have to worry about strangers.  I have some really nice clients that fly north for the summer to escape the netherworldly humid Texas heat.  They have an enormous back yard that is well over an acre and completely enclosed.  I told my little one she could just go and play while I worked and she could not believe it.  “Just GO?!” she asked in shock and disbelief.  “Yep” I said nonchalantly.  “But you need to watch me,” she stated with a hint of fear in her voice.  “Nope” I replied.  “You are completely safe here.”  “What about bugs?” she wanted to know.  I whipped out the repellent, covering her from head to toe and told her she was good to go.  Hesitantly at first, she went outside but lingered close while I went about my job checking on the house.  She discovered a putting green where she turned the dignified game of golf into a hybrid of cricket and some sort of carnival game at the fair.  Next she found the swing and a little while later she was running around the giant azalea bushes in circles shrieking with abandon.  She ventured out even more and crossed over their bridge that leads to a gazebo in the very back.  After I’d finished my rounds I came out to play with her.  We raced and laughed and tried to scare each other.  The comforting sounds and smells of late summer brought me back to when I was little and being outside with total abandon.  One of my favorite quotes is from the Lebanese born poet Kahlil Gibran:

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”

And that is exactly what my little one and I did … out in the great outdoors.

What little I know about ladybugs is that they are beneficial, eating pests such as aphids off rose leaves.  Many cultures consider ladybugs to be a good sign.  I was fascinated to discover the Christian legend that says they were sent by Our Lady the Blessed Virgin Mary to protect crops.  Grasshoppers I know leap tremendously far in the air and, according to what I have unearthed, it is the Chinese symbol of abundance.  They only leap forward.  I saw both this lady and this guy pictured here and I have decided I am going to claim a double dose of good luck that will be coming my way.  After all, I think catching this ladybug before she flew away and getting this grasshopper pic before he jumped ahead was a pretty extraordinary occurrence for someone just out in their yard watering the plants.

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.  If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” ~ American biologist E. O. Wilson

I am not superstitious, nor do I play the lottery.  But based upon that quote alone I am feeling lucky.

As I have confessed here many times, much to my lament I do not know plants like my mother did and trees like my father did.  So now I am having to learn them on my own.  These are Morning Glories that are growing wild along our driveway.  They open fully to the Eastern sun and by noon they have closed themselves up waiting for another day.  In that way they remind me of water lilies.  I have heard they are invasive.  Some of my favorite plants and trees seem to be labeled as invasive so I am not sure exactly what to say on that.  I also seem to have an affinity for plants rooted in Asia; to me they have such a delicate, graceful flow of movement.  The American dancer Martha Graham is quoted as once having said:

“‘Age’ is the acceptance of a term of years.  But maturity is the glory of years.”

I love the vine’s heart shaped leaves and delight in waking to its prolific blooms.  They serve as a reminder to me that each day I should stop and savor the morning glory.

I am always fascinated by the etymology of words and phrases.  It is supposed that the word “tad” (meaning a liittle) originated from “tadpole.”  I have written about our toads several times and a reader requested wanting to actually see one in the tadpole stage.  I may have a better picture, but for the time being this is the best one I have managed to fish up.  (No pun intended.)  From what I have been able to observe the female lays a few hundred eggs that look like a bunch of black dots in our pond.  Not very long after I can see they’ve become tadpoles, which swim about freely feeding on microscopic organisms.  At about six weeks they grow hind legs and around three months their tails shrink and they are able to breathe out of water and go on land.  This is based on my amateur observation anyway.  Part of the joy is in learning.  The famed French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said:

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.”

There are struggles and triumphs; sorrows and pains.  The comfort is in knowing if you are in a diffucult time the good will come back around.  Water, like life, is rhythmic.  And they all follow the cycles of life.

I uncovered this pretty little gal while watering the other day.  She was hanging out with my friend Rocky the toad.  I think that must be prime real estate where they are.  Judging by Google images I’m guessing this is a Mediterranean house gecko.  I find it interesting in Latin they’re called “Moon Lizards” since they come out in the evening.  They’re beneficial and eat insects.  They are not considered an invasive species due to their habits, small size, and because they do not really threaten the populations of native animals.  Their eyes have elliptical pupils and they have no lids.  I think she is a pretty little thing with her spots and striped tail.  I am also pretty sure we have another variant roaming around that appear nearly translucent and are much shorter.  I rescue them a lot when I open our door to the pond at night to feed the koi and they accidentally scamper in.  The cats just sit around waiting to pounce while my little one shrieks “DON’T KILL IT!!!” (as if I ever would).  Wow they’re fast!  I’m proud of this picture because I was actually able to get one that wasn’t blurry.  The American astronomer Carl Sagan once said:

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

How vast their little world of river rocks by my fountain must be.  This one clearly knew me, probably because she sees me speaking with Rocky just about every day.  She paused a long time sort of studying me as I was her and I almost got to pat her.  For now I shall just remain content with saying, “Hello, Gecko.”

I thought of Garth Brooks’ famous song when I saw this picture I’d snapped of my sweet friend Rocky as he was coming out to say hello.  I do not often listen to country music, but my mother instilled in me an appreciation for Willie Nelson, and I have always loved anything by the group Alabama.  My favorite music is mariachi and I never even took Spanish.  I do not care for Linda Ronstadt’s music in English but in my opinion she is the greatest mariachi singer of all time, in a genre dominated by men.  For as long as I can remember I have carried a deep adoration for sacred liturgical music:  particularly Biebl’s “Ave Maria”, Grieg’s “Ave Maris Stella”, Cesar Franck’s “Panis Angelicus”, and Allegri’s “Miserere Mei, Deus” just to name a few.  I used to sing quite a bit but stopped in college.  Now I just sing alone for pleasure.  Of course I’ve been singing to my little one since the moment I found out I was carrying her.  But I digress.  Every morning when I fill our fountains outside my little friend here pops up for a visit.  I look forward to my time with him as I realize our friendship is on his terms.  He blends in so well with the river rocks I know it is his choice as to whether or not he wishes to see me.  I love patting his head and now he lets me rub his belly.  I always say hello and we have a quiet time of reflection while I slowly pet his textured skin.  When I hold him I can feel his heart beating in my hands and I am humbled by his trust.  My daddy always told me to be kind to everyone on the ladder of life; that I might see some of those same people on the way down.  American author and clergyman Henry Van Dyke once said, “A friend is what the heart needs all the time.”  With seemingly so many striving to climb superficial social ladders, I have learned to truly appreciate the value of friends in low places.

Never underestimate the power of flowers.  Whether they are wild in a field or contained in a vase, they bring beauty and joy just by laying eyes upon them.  I try to have an inexpensive bouquet of flowers in my cut crystal vase each week.  My favorite combination is Stargazer lilies and roses.  They cheer the whole house, lend beauty to dinner, and smell divine.  I snapped this candid picture of my little one hugging these pink flowers I bought for the week and thought it summed up the sentiment perfectly.  It was so hot outside my camera lens fogged which is why it looks hazy.  I am thrilled the love of and appreciation for the simple beauty of flowers my grandmother always had was passed down to my mother.  My mother in turn passed it on to me and now I am passing it to my little one.  American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. once said, “The Amen of nature is always a flower.”  I could not agree more.  Amen to flower power.