Love Notes

Each season has its hinge.   It's not a particular date on the calendar, it's more like we become forest creatures and just know.  For me, it's the moment I slip the yard man an extra $20 to drag my tangerine tree from the sunroom out onto the patio.  Literally six inches from where it lives all winter, just the other side of the window pane, but with it comes a completely different social life.  The garden once again becomes my living room.

I read somewhere recently about the dawn of iced coffee season.  (You know I liked that.)  Even though I'm a hot coffee year round kind of gal.  Even when it's a hundred degrees with swamp-like humidity here in Washington.  Then there's my wonderful college roommate Nanny, who lives on the oft frozen north shore of Boston, but is a twelve-months-a-year disciple of Dunkin Donuts iced coffee.   What is it with New Englanders and Dunkin Donuts?   And why is it that the only donut I like, the butternut, is only sold in their New England stores?  Maybe that's actually a good thing for me. 

Where was I ... honoring the hinge.  Which reminds me of my dad.  READ MORE

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The hurrah of Labor Day festivities is always seasoned - for me at least - with a dollop of melancholia, a sense of an ending.  A touch of grey drifts across my last lobster roll of the season, just one of a string of bittersweet "lasts".  Goodbye to Sunday night sunset cocktails on this beach above, so long to riding my 20 year old bike along the golf course to our small summer church, farewell to late afternoons needlepointing with friends on the beach, adieu  to the leisurely la la land that is August in New England.    For me most of all, Labor Day oozes with goodbyes to dear friends and the warm embrace of this small community. 

Yet I know how lucky I am, this melancholia is only the shadow cast by gratitude.  READ MORE HERE

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I am rather irked by the parade of brown prints and suede boots high-stepping their way into my Instagram feed this week.  And so begins my annual lament:  let the sultry magic of summer linger a bit longer.   

Hellooooo.  It's still July, people.   

After all, the days are still long and the evenings still warm ... why break the enchantment? 
  
Lounge in the sun with a good book.  
Bite into a peach and let the juice drip down your chin.  
Be still.  Be here.  In this one precious moment.  READ MORE

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It’s July, how could that be?  My mind today is on the fleeting nature of things - flowers unfurling, bees buzziing, champagne bubbles rising and vanishing into the warm summer air.  I watch from my desk as a hummingbird feeds on a coral honeysuckle vine.  My lilies above have just put on the most spectacular fireworks show.  And now, they are mostly gone, petal after petal scattered across the garden like confetti after a parade. 

Last week, I broke a rule and cut some stargazers to bring inside, hoping to coax a few more days out of their riotous celebration*.  As they fade, I try to remind myself that the future holds new surprises in its tightly closed fist.   For evidence, I turn my gaze to the tomatoes ripening on the vine, while my tangerine tree teases with its promise of tiny fruit.   READ MORE

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Welcome, summer.

There’s something about these first few white-hot (or not) days of summer that feel like a blank page—sun-drenched, wide open, and humming with possibility. Maybe it’s the light: longer now, softer, spilling into the evening with no sense of hurry. Maybe it’s the white dresses—satin and linen, cotton and embroidery —appearing like a quiet little parade of joy in motion.   Or maybe it’s just that this season, more than any other, invites us to softly begin again.  READ MORE

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