Recently, Robert, and I were in Atlanta for their annual Pride Festival. One morning we ventured over to the always-magnificent Atlanta Botanical Garden.
In addition to over 10,000 pumpkins (!) on display (I’ll block about that a little later), there was a new exhibit, “Enchanted Trees” woven through the garden’s incredible natural landscape.
Here’s one:
Amazing Beauty!
Robert and I were walking through Telfair Square here in Savannah last night after dinner. The statue-laden Telfair Academy (the first public art museum in the South, 1888) shone incandescently, perhaps a bit eerily, exuding both pride and remorse in our city’s problematic past.
I paused and gazed up into the heavy, meandering limbs of the ancient Live Oak trees, limbs laden with both desiccated (for now) resurrection fern and new, brilliant green spring leaves.
Death and life together.
The street light could not illuminate all their crevices.
“Some of these trees have to be older than the academy itself,” I thought, as we walked out of the past. “If only trees could talk!”
A light breeze kneaded the old and the new together, causing an audible whispering in the leaves.
And that’s my Saturday Evening Post.
Marveling this morning, remembering our beautiful visit to the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, FL last Friday.
It is one of our favorite art museums anywhere, but this time, because the weather was so beautiful, we decided to simply hang out in the gardens.
Robert and a BIG oak tree …
Me, pausing by a reflection pool …
HR too …
The gardens make up the “backyard” of the museum, along the mighty St. John’s River, with downtown in the distance.
MARVELOUS!
I think it’s important, perhaps now more than ever, that we finds things that cause us to pause and marvel.
Marveling at the beauty of Longleaf Pine bark after a spring rain.
My weekly list of a few “joy inciters” in my life. A Friday Gratitude Journal, of sorts.
1. My Thanksgiving cranberry sauce!
2. Having hands and fingers (even with my arthritis) which enable me to chop onions for Thanksgiving dressing, shake hands with strangers, pick up granddaughter Isabelle and hold hands with HR.
3. The novel I am currently reading in my study chair about a Black American woman caught between her privilege and her identity.
4. This little tree near us who is losing his beautiful leaves. But see how he is standing proud in spite of his de-clothing
5. Peanut butter.
May you have a weekend for which to give thanks.
Walking to beautiful Forsyth Park here in Savannah, HR and I came upon this old Spanish Moss-covered tree we had passed many a time before.
But this time, the tree beckoned us over.
“What,” I asked, still not sure what was going on.
“Why do you all walk past me, ignoring me, disrespecting me? I have been here long before any of you arrived.”
And for the first time in, well, forever, I saw the tree as a living being. A fellow creature on planet earth.
A tree who “sees and understands.”
“Inside”
This morning I’m marveling at how the “little things” we encounter in daily life can sometimes bring sudden bursts of joy to us.
“Close Encounters of the Little Kind”
A couple of weeks ago Robert and I were up near Monticello, NY and took a little walk. “Look, Neal!” he excitedly pointed, with a little too much morning verve for me. At first all I saw was a tree with splotchy marks on it, but getting closer I saw it … him … Mr. Tree!
And somehow Mr. Tree brought unexpected but welcome joy to our morning walk.
What little thing have you noticed lately that brought a smile or an “aww/awe” to your life?
NealEnJoy 