#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Rain on the river, and Charlie is happy to lap it up. Oh, Charlie. After his first morning drink, we followed the trail and met a mishap. He did what a lab is bred to do: the muskrat waddled across our path to return from his jaunt to the wetlands at just the wrong moment. Let’s leave the story there. It was much more pleasant eventually. The red willow seems to sprout from the green river. There’s the shape of a bright yellow sun in the bark the beaver sawed. There are red blossoms on trees that are welcoming spring in the rain in the rain in the lasting rain. I walked for a long time, enjoying the quiet of the early morning, being alone with my thoughts. Mostly, my breath. Breathing into each moment, trying to be now, in the pleasant chill of my cheeks in the finest mist.
At home, I worked on the poems from letters for poetry workshop tonight. In the afternoon, I happily went to the kitchen where I am having fun. I am in the mood to please the household. A pot of turkey meatballs, an adaptation of my mother’s beef meatballs I know from heart, baked and plopped into sauce. A focaccia bread from scratch! A banana bread for breakfast tomorrow goes into the oven, my mother’s recipe. And, why not an apple pie? Also my mother’s recipe (but not a homemade crust. I have never succeeded in making her crust from scratch.) They come, hungry and eager, when called and filled their plates and after the meal they clap. I love making them pleased with meals right now. The gathering is what makes the difference. The girls in and out of the kitchen, chatting, and slicing an onion and cleaning the dishes. There is a strong feeling of cooperation in this household right now. And, in the basement, a secret garden grows under the new grow lamps my husband installed for my daughter’s project. The seedlings of the brand new, as yet unplanted, but very much imagined, vegetable garden are begun.
