Nap Before Lunch
After erratic temperatures and precipitation, the California poppy and blue wild flax plants have begun to appear in the wildflower garden. I am hopeful that flowers will come along in a week or two. While waiting, I transplanted two wild violets from elsewhere in the yard, a few days before the first lawn-mowing episode. The white wild violet has produced two new flowers, but I am not sure if the blue one will recover from the transplanting or not. There are also several dandelion plants, which I also love. I am not certain, yet, but I think that some cornflower plants are also growing among the poppies.
My sister was here for a few weeks visiting and finishing the job of sorting through the parents’ papers and assorted keepsakes for distributing or tossing. We took a day trip on Sunday to Itasca State Park, which does not officially open until the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, by which time she will be on her way back to New England. We’ve had several extended periods of visiting. My throat is still sore from the unaccustomed talking. It’s been good. Able to talk about anything. Is very good.
The coming month will include another visit to the dentist and the PCP. Otherwise, I plan to spend a lot of time in the garden and continue to dust, sort, and redistribute the accumulated belongings, which processes were neglected during the last years of my freelance work and the decline of my parents’ and my own health. Now setting aside the bereavement counseling process, I feel good about the ongoing process of setting things in order.
I am looking forward to beginning the Photography Workshop that I signed up for, this spring; that will be a six-week course beginning the second week of September. If this year’s garden produces flowers as it has the past half a dozen years—even though in a new area of the yard, this year and last—I should have a variety of subjects to photograph.
I still feel quite alone, which I am noticing more, now that my sister has been visiting and now will be leaving again in a little while. My husband and I are making a point of talking together more often as friends and relatives fade away. It might feel less odd, I think, if we ourselves were experiencing getting older, ourselves, rather than throwing off stress and troubles and feeling younger. However long this phase lasts. So far, the 70s feel younger than the 60s by a wide margin.
How odd!
Best regards,
Lizl