April 25, 2020
It begins with a bowl of breakfast. Plain Greek yogurt with honey, strawberries, pecans.
Then there’s the gorgeous clear weather – and watching my children out in it, enjoying my friend Anita’s gift, dropped on our porch the day before.
Small hands turn our brick lane into a thing of textured magic.
I spend a lot of time in my flowerbeds. My Lenten Rose is still blooming luxuriously, its beauty tipped bashfully toward the earth.
I discover that tulip bulbs are gilded. I see it first on my screen. Is it a trick of the camera? No – I go back to look, and the gilt is certainly there, a dusting of impossible fragility.
I spend hours working alongside my son, mulching our large flowerbeds. We are tired and silly and grouchy and flushed, the gorgeous warmth of the sun’s light so welcome on our skin.
There are puppies, here for one more week.
And a tiny girl with rain boots and curls and dandelions.
When I am done with my mulching, my hands are a revelation. I’ve never liked my own skin so much. I will not be able to explain this to you.
Up close, it is like animal skin: a map of mystery and wisdom and pathlessness, all the things I have walked in and lost and found.
Probably you see dirt. I see what I am.
A perfect Saturday. I’ve been breathing easier ever since.
What makes your weekends memorable?
18,000 steps on my Fitbit from working outside cleaning out flower beds and mulching with my favorite man.
You beautiful and wise lady! I enjoyed the earthiness of this post, along the pictures to prove it.
You are not alone. I, too, have marveled at my hands.
Love your words about your hands! I would not be able to explain it to you either but somehow I know just what you mean.
Ah! The therapy of digging in the dirt….
You have just built your immune system to weather the storm of Covid. And encourage your little ones to embrace the dirt, too. It’s full of immune boosting power!! God put it there for us!
I also thought about a mom who has to be missing one little girl with curls rubber boots and dandelions!!:( Bless you for your love for littles!!