My Secret Garden

Every day I drive to work and there's one house that has an almost English garden, with high weedy reedy plants and flowers, so odd when it should be grown in some english cottage or manor garden. Then there's one that is in full white tiny blooms like a carpet of white surrounding a Mama Mary statue, another one I always pick out while whizzing by at 40 on a 35. So I asked myself what i would like to have in MY secret GARDEN. Obviously, my thoughts run home to 159 Ortega, my growing up years. The caimito trees, the kamias tree, the poor coconut tree that was hit by lightning during Yoling so it never bore fruit again, the santan in red, the avocado tree that always bore only one fruit, and the mango tree that could not even bear a bunch of piko, and the pink kalachuchi, the jade vine (which was killed by some errant gardener who didn't know the vines , bougainvillea and the trellis of tea like leaves Mr. Del stole cuttings of from the Indonesian ambassador's residence in Forbes while waiting for GYN during one of her ANWG meetings. Definitely I would like all these, but all PINKS for the kalachuchi, santan and bougainvillea . And more. Now I want some peppers and chilis, tomatoes, herbs that won't fall prey to rabid rabbits and squirrels, some stuff I would hope to pick and eat and pretend I am Chez Panisse's Alice Waters, but add a gardenia, jasmine and ilangilang tree, some bleeding hearts and sampaguita campupot style, and not to forget the wild cadena de amor. Sigh, but in my mind's kitchen garden, these are planted deep in my memories and make me smile whenever I pass those gardens that have been tended with care, me? I'll let them run wild, sorry, not a green thumb except in my mind. So there.

2012

Woke up to snow, clouds and cold. Did a few errands and had to bring some stuff to the Bells.
Amazing....as I drove west, the dark clouds were being pushed away by winds and by the time I got to Bambi's it was blue skies, white clouds, sunshine so bright....I thought to myself...how beautiful....dark clouds being chased away, brightness...almost like a beautiful fall(or spring) morning, crisp, clear....
but the clouds did not leave my thoughts....this is Chicago January 1st...where snow and storms are the norm....so the earth did shift again with the earthquakes felt far away from here....where adverse weather and tectonic plates moved slightly and put us away from the path of regular weather.....and that same weather now falls on places not normally in the snow paths.

Still I am thankful for the beauty, the brightness and the hopefulness this brings. So even as the clouds are now taking over again...that moment of sunshine lifted my spirits.
May 2012 be fruitful, healthy and prosperous for all of us. Thank you Lord.