My corset is laced so tight I can hardly breathe. “The most important day of your life,” Grandmama reminded me this morning, as she pulled and fussed and fretted. Mama frowned as she watched my tiny waist grow even smaller. “You must love, honor, and obey him always,” she advised and then obliquely added, “especially […]
Tag: ZenGarden
Each Bud Contains a Memory
At night I see her from my bedroom window. Looking down into the garden, I watch as she slowly exits the house, quietly moves down the flagstone path to the marble bench glowing in the moonlight. She painfully lowers herself to the bench and sits surrounded by beds of lavender. During WWII she was stationed in Central […]
There’s a Story Here Somewhere
There’s a story here somewhere – I must be the one to discover it! Before me is a table set for six. Five plates still contain half-eaten food. Four chairs are pushed back from the table at odd angles, as if their occupants suddenly needed to flee. One chair is turned over. The sixth chair, […]
Frozen in Time
Inside we sit, frozen in time while on the other side of door and window azalea pink and dogwood white bud, blossom into pastel-soft colors, fade, then fall effortlessly to the ground. Nature reaffirms itself all around us, while we reluctantly adjust to a new, slower way of life. At dawn, the birds begin their […]
Diary 1667
3 JuneCame home through the Merchant’s Gate into our garden at the Navy Office. Seeing a person standing there, staring over the picket fence, did make me quake and sweat that it might be a bailiff. Fortunately it was but an old crone, and I got in safely. The servants were late spreading my shirts […]
A Gift From Vincent
I bet that child is in the lavender field again. I can see the attraction for her. Those strips of soil between the serried rows of plants provide a stadium of running tracks. She goes up and down each one, just like the horses plough their regular route in the crop fields. At least our […]
White azaleas in a pot (oil on canvas)
I’m sure it’s going to break my back one of these days, carting these heavy pots around. Monsieur keeps asking for plants to be brought up to the studio. I’m taking the azalea back out, to give it a bit of fresh air. I noticed that he’d finished with it when I went to clean […]
Recuperating
“For this exercise, I want you to recall a memory you have of a flower. It could be anything; the smallest, most seemingly insignificant fragment.” Everyone in the room shifts in their seats. No one wants to be here. Well, a few, but the majority would have traded a kidney just to get out of […]
The Orchard
Perched on the highest limb of the apple tree the boy can see further, clearer than ever. Anger places him in the tree. His older brother, Adam, his hero, his best friend, his confidant has turned on him. Adam laughed at him, blurting out his closest secret for the family to hear. To a 10-year […]
The Empty Piazza
Bella gazed down at the Piazza, holding back the heavy curtains with a trembling hand. The bustling crowds had been replaced by an eerie silence, broken only by the rustling of pigeons and one old man by the fountain, muttering to himself. Her mind wandered back to her parents smiling their goodbyes. No hugging, not […]
Tu Me Manques
They started writing in high school. Brief, stilted letters from Linda struggling with schoolgirl French, and from Amelie, longer, beautifully typed epistles in English. It began at the instigation of Linda’s language teacher, but after struggling to describe the beautiful apple tree in her garden, Linda soon abandoned writing in French. The exchange of ideas, […]
One Ginger Lily
The bride’s request was clear. No exorbitant bouquet, no expensive orchids. Simply one ginger lily to carry on her journey down the aisle. She was adamant – he was dismayed, certain that no ginger lilies had bloomed on earth since the Great Tsunami of 2035. Its inundation combined with a rapidly spreading invasive fungus ravaging […]