sticky sweet

Summer has arrived in a succession of sinfully sweet hours that pass quickly yet unhurried. Delicious moments clustered like the petals of a flower from my beloved patch of soil, or a tower of wrapped goods ready for a picnic. The sun is glorious, beating down through the maples, the greenhouse glass and my bedroom window. Every meal taken indoors feels like a wrongdoing. Every minute not spent in the warmth seems an eternity.

I see the season as a whole, undivided into different times, emotions or places, but a culmination of every moment to come. They are as one - the feelings, chances, ups, downs and memories. They glow ahead. I move along towards them through a chain of sticky-sweet hours.

fifteen

"let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem." -osho

Fifteen. It's halfway to thirty. It's a stepping stone, a page turned. It's 365 days: a year holding chance at life. But maybe I'm the true beholder, happiness and adventure poised like paintbrushes in my hands; this year, my canvas. 

brown thumb

I've often been asked in the past whether I, like mother and grandmother before me, caught the "green thumb". I've always shook my head, no, not in my interests.

What I was never told is that to obtain my green thumb, I first required my brown thumb. Brown for the half moons of soil beneath my fingernails. The mess smeared on my socks, jeans, and sweater. The dark undergrowth of roots after being pulled. The heaps of tangled weeds I spent hours gathering. The worms, beetles and bugs, surprised to suddenly see the sun.

Before the beauty - the flourish and the blooms - comes the dirt. Before green comes brown.