A bird in hand

I'm not sure why this is so important to me. I've spent a week trying to photograph this bird on the nest in my shrub. She usually flew away as I'd come and go to work with my camera in hand. She'd fly to the top branches and squawk at me to go away. One morning, I leaned out the living room window, a perfect vantage point to this scene. She stayed long enough for 5 photo's. 4 bad ones and this one. It was worth all the fuss I think.

I'm so flattered that my garden is sanctuary to more than my scattered thoughts. As I try to make a career as a self employed human, designing everything from Interiors to Gardens and Garages. The panic at bill time is sometimes enough to make you want a job at Lowe's. Almost, that is. I find myself being a waiter and housekeeper when money is required and my services are not. You do what you gotta do I guess. I enjoy all of it, and the variety of each day.

Sometimes I'd like to have a 'real' job. Like this month I pay property taxes and car insurance. It required working on Saturday my Birthday and Sunday. I made the money and got a Garden ready for Passover. I was so tired after working in the garden and waitering at night that I felt drunk. A good tired all the same. I soaked my sun kissed body made more lean and tone from the hard work in a hot bath. My spirit was full of gratitude, in spite of the challenges this life I've created has. I don't' think it would be easier to pay all that with a real job. Surely less entertaining. I fell asleep in the water thinking about the bird in the bush. Plotting another photo shoot.

It may have been the next day I got the picture. Not sure it matters, but, being connected to your life and life around you does matter. Today is a rain day and the gardens are closed. As thunder booms outside the window I'm thinking about the new landscape at Angie's that needs water. The tile installers at Kitty's, and hoping Mrs. Golden buys the sofa I have for sale. That reminds me to meet the carpenter at Darlene's. It is a life of scattered thoughts, maybe I like it that way. Is it multitasking or ADD? Who knows, but I've got a bird in my bush. Who needs pills!

Thank God for my garden. It reminds me that crazy can be beautiful. Sometimes you need a little bird to tell you that.

Ava Rose

It is said that all beautiful things are reborn in spring. I see the evidence of that throughout my garden. I’m like a greedy child waiting for gifts this time of year. As the garden awakes from a long sleep I’m eagerly prancing about the north lawn getting a glimpse of the loot.
Although a garden demonstrates the science of botany I’m more enchanted by the childish and romantic magic I find there. The lyrics of a Victorian song are “There are fairies in the bottom of my garden”. I think the song reminds us that among the emerging lilies of last year are opportunities to change more than our landscape. All this birth and being reborn inspires a desire to better ourselves.
My garden is not the only thing giving birth. Two of my best friends gave birth to baby Ava Rose. I held her the day she was born and wondered what being a parent must be like. I can only imagine that nothing could make you want to better yourself more than looking into the eyes of your child.
All I could compare it to is my relationship with my dog. She has inspired me to better myself. Although when she found a whole slice of pizza on the sidewalk and carried it in her mouth for three blocks all I could do was laugh uncontrollably. I thought it so funny I tried to walk to Angie’s house to show her. Parents don’t do that. So, I appointed myself God Fag to Ava. Some one has to take the child to musicals. Her parents dislike the genre.
I’d like to think that as a parent I’d bestow upon my child all the gifts of myself. And learn with them the gifts they have been given. Eastern thought suggests that a wise parent is both teacher and student. Oscar Wilde said “Be yourself your poem”. I will tell Ava that one day; and not to eat pizza off the sidewalk.
I wish I’d heard that quote earlier in my life. But, I learned the lesson all the same. So when I disliked my life I fought to change it. A few less than poetic verses don’t have to remain. You can rewrite, replant and celebrate the season of change. It’s like the dead tree on the south lawn. It has to go. It is, after all, the perfect time of year for change, both inside and out.
Welcome to the garden Ava.