Category Archives: flourishing tree

Fall scenery and other restorative happenings

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I’m feeling unsettled today, though I’m not completely sure why. Maybe it’s the unending days of dreary, gray weather where I live. Not cool weather, which this runner would welcome, but dreary and humid and warmer than it should be for this time of year.

Maybe it’s too many pieces of unexpected news and delays and bothers and too many Christmas catalogs piling in the mailbox too soon.

Maybe it’s because I’ve come back to reality after a wonderful time away with my husband. We visited a land of sunshine and leaves changing and beauty all around us and came home to gray all around.

Is it gray where you are? Or are you feeling a bit unsettled today? Care to escape for a short time? Then I hope you’ll pause and rest a few moments here and let these photos restore you.

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Do you know one of the things I love most about Fall? It’s a time to look up and look far but also to look closely at detailed beauty. It’s a time drenched in blazing color.

And extra this week, some links that are restoring me:

Did I miss something you came across in the past week that restored you? Feel free to share it below by leaving a reply.

What to do during the shutdown

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You may be wondering what to do with your time while we all wait for broken politics and broken politicians to reopen the National Parks. I have a few suggestions.

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National Parks are still closed eight days later, and though there’s access to some places, some of the closing measures seem punitive, designed to make citizens as mad as possible.

I simply don’t understand this quagmire, but instead of letting it make me despondent, I’ve searched for ways to be grateful and to fill my time with activities that soothe and heal and calm my soul.

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Nothing beats a stunning sunset at the close of the day. I could have missed this one had I been focused on watching the nightly news instead of sitting on the porch swing at the close of day.

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The federal government can’t shut down autumn. Get outside. Visit a state park (or even parts of National Parks that you can still get into. Or simply go for a walk in your neighborhood.

Fall is here, and it’s bringing its beauty with it. The government can’t mess up some things. So go outside and look for the change of seasons. Visit a pumpkin patch. Go leaf collecting. Fill up your bird feeders and see who’s still around looking for seeds.

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Good reads!

Even if the weather isn’t cooperating where you are for outdoor adventures, or autumn hasn’t yet made an appearance, there are still ways to tune out the shutdown. Read a good book!

I’ve been catching up on my unread book pile lately and thought I’d share some of them with you.

A friend and fellow writer posted an interview with Nadia Bolz-Weber on her Facebook page recently, and as soon as I listened to the interview, I was hooked. Bolz-Weber is the author of Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, a stunning memoir in which Bolz-Weber describes the damage done to her as a child growing up in an ultra-conservative church, her subsequent path through alcohol, drug abuse and recovery (not to mention a few tattoo parlors) and into a Grace-filled life as a Lutheran pastor. If you have read this book, I want to sit down and talk about it with you over coffee.

But this book isn’t for everyone. It may not be for you:

  • If you mind salty language (Bolz-Weber can make even sailors blush sometimes).
  • If you think church shouldn’t welcome certain groups of sinners (not you, of course, but the really bad sinners like drag queens, swindlers, alcoholics, government officials … ahem).
  • If you think God’s grace can only happen to certain people who then go on to live out perfect, conventional, acceptable lives.
  • If you think a female Lutheran tattooed “pastrix” (a pejorative for women pastors) has nothing to say that could change your heart about or for God and those whom God calls us to love (our neighbors, our enemies, ourselves).

Anyway, like I said, if you read the book, I’d love to discuss it with you.

Since I like to alternate between fiction and nonfiction these days – an easy way to cleanse my reading palate – the next book I picked up was Louise Penny’s The Brutal Telling, the fifth in her Inspector Gamache series. I don’t want to give too much away because it is a mystery and is the fifth in a series set in a small Canadian village with characters I’ve grown to love, but I will tell you this: The Brutal Telling is Penny’s best book yet. There are more in the series, and I’m woefully behind. So she may have better later books, but The Brutal Telling is haunting and magical and masterful. I love what Penny writes on her website about her own books: “If you take only one thing away from any of my books I’d like it to be this: Goodness exists.” This belief in goodness comes through in the way she writes, and the goodness in her complex characters shines through even the darkness inside them.

Next up on my list to read: Alberto Salazar’s 14 Minutes: A Running Legend’s Life and Death and Life. That’s not a typo. This world-class runner, now a coach to running greats such as Mo Farah, Galen Rupp, Dathan Ritzenheim and high school phenom Mary Cain, spent 14 minutes dead. No pulse dead. My husband has already read the book, and I’m looking forward to the inspiration it promises.

How about you? Are you finding good ways to distract yourself from the government shutdown? What about your favorite books that you’ve read lately? I’m always looking for recommendations to add to my to-be-read book stack.

Celebrating our (closed) national parks

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The last few days have brought even more than the usual political vitriol, and with the sadness and frustration and anger I share with many of you over the government shutdown, I thought maybe we should distract ourselves by going on an armchair road trip together.

Let’s not talk about the events that have closed down our national parks. Instead, let’s celebrate them. Will you come along with me as we go to some of my favorites? Those of you who don’t live in the US, you’re invited, too! Maybe this virtual visit will inspire you to plan an actual visit to one of the parks someday … once they’ve reopened.

Acadia National Park (Maine)

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A view from the top of Mt. Desert, complete with lichen and pink granite

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Arches National Park (Utah)

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You actually can’t see this arch even when the park is open. It collapsed shortly after our visit, but the rest of the park is still there and is well-worth a visit.

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The Blue Ridge Parkway (North Carolina and Virginia)
Because this one’s a road, too, you can still see parts of it during the shutdown. The road itself is open, as are the overlooks. But campgrounds, visitor centers and bathrooms are closed. I don’t know whether trails are closed.

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Canyonlands National Park (Utah)
This is the most serene national park I’ve ever visited. Arches National Park is nearby and draws a larger crowd. But this place is phenomenal and raw and beautiful. Oh, and there are no guardrails to protect you from yourself.

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Crater Lake (Oregon)
We visited Crater Lake during the summer. And yes, that’s a huge pile of snow left over from their record-breaking snowfall total that year. It’s closed, too, but not surprisingly, a snow plow operator is one of the few employees still working.

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The Grand Canyon (Arizona)
Pictures don’t do the Grand Canyon justice, but I’m including some anyway. Be prepared if you go: it’s the opposite of Canyonlands (see above), but it’s amazing in its, well, … grandeur. You really should go see it. Seriously, put it on your bucket list.

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Yosemite National Park (California)
I cannot even begin to convey how fabulous this place is. It is amazing and awesome and stunning and too much to take in. Yesterday marked its 123rd anniversary as a national park. Google even did an animated doodle for it yesterday. I’m trying to ignore the irony of that and the fact that I also got a Yosemite email yesterday morning inviting me to visit. Ahem.

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Do you have a favorite national park that you’ve visited? If so, which one? Are there others on your bucket list? What parks would you describe as “must-see” that I haven’t mentioned here? If so, celebrate them by leaving a reply below.

Gifts of figs and flowers

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Those of you who have followed this blog since the beginning may remember how much I love figs. They were the subject of my very first post.

While it wasn’t anywhere near fig season when I wrote that original post, we’re right smack in the middle of it now. I pass by a laden fig tree every morning when I’m out walking the dog and have to fight the urge to pick a fig or two as I go by.

So when a friend of mine emailed me last week to ask if I’d like some figs from her tree, I responded with an enthusiastic yes (and probably a “Yippee!” in my head). She delivered them a few days later on her way to work.

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A friend’s gift of figs

I was touched by the fact that she had even thought of me for the figs (instead of not thinking of me at all or instead of offering something I don’t love, like zucchini, for instance). Perhaps she remembered me talking about how much I like them? Whatever the reason, I am grateful she thought of me and even took the time to deliver them to my house.

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I had fun photographing them in the morning light, but it was hard to resist eating them before I was done snapping pictures.

Her simple act of kindness and friendship fueled me and fed me. And it made me wonder whether we take time often enough to look around at the simple abundances in our own lives and, instead of letting those gifts go to waste, think, “Who would enjoy this as a gift?”

Garden gifts
My mom always shared what she grew in the garden – including zucchini (which my brother and I wish she had shared all of instead of keeping any for us. Oh, the zucchini trauma stories we could tell).

She made the most beautiful bouquets of flowers to take to people and would even send bouquets of gardenias in to work with me because she knew I loved them so much. She doesn’t garden as much as she used to, but the flowers still bloom and create a beautiful space surrounding my parents’ house, and I like to think of her garden as a gift to her neighbors.

She has rubbed off on me that way. I try to plant flowers each year that will give me enough to share with others. And I save more random glass jars than most people, so that I can always have a “vase” handy.

However, there are still seasons of the gardening year that I haven’t quite figured out, and I hate those times when I want to bring someone flowers and head outside to find that nothing terribly pretty is blooming.

My mother-in-law loves gardening and giving flowers, too. She often sends me flowers for special occasions, and this is what arrived at my doorstep from her a few weeks ago:

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A beautiful gift of orchids

She knows I struggle with orchids (I do much better with outdoor plants that have a better chance of surviving my bouts of neglect), but she promised these are easy to care for. I really do hope I can keep the plant alive and blooming.

I love the way the afternoon light filters through the orchid’s petals.

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For those of you who garden, do you share what you grow? Do others share with you? Do you think it strengthens friendships to offer homegrown gifts or even store-bought gifts of fruit or flowers? For those of you who don’t garden, I’d love to hear what simple gifts you share with your friends. What ways do you share the crop of kindness and abundance from your own life with others?

Oh, and to my friends who live nearby (you know who you are), it’s baby lacebark elm tree season at my house. Let me know if you’d like one of the elms for your own yard. They’re a gift I’d love to share with you.

Lessons from red geraniums

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My mother-in-law recently shared a story with me about her red geraniums, and it got me thinking about geraniums and what they can teach us about life.

She lives in a climate where geraniums are perennial (not always the case where I live). Many years ago, a gardener who had beautiful geraniums gave my mother-in-law four cuttings from her plants, and for years, my mother-in-law kept them in pots and trimmed them or broke off stems when they started to outgrow the pots. But then she decided to start planting them in the ground at her home and her church. She also began giving away cuttings from neighbors and friends (and friends of friends) who asked for them. She told me she feels like the Johnny Appleseed of geraniums.

I love this story for many reasons. One is that I love geraniums, especially red ones. I love their smell and their fuzzy stems and their cheerful blooms. As I said, geraniums don’t always come back from one season to the next where I live, and when they do, they’re usually much punier than the first year:

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Though the blooms were larger last year, I’m still happy for this geranium to have come back this summer.

I managed to buy a really strange variety this summer and have been disappointed with how sparse they look. I guess I just prefer the big clomps of blooms that I get with standard geraniums.

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The new variety of geranium I planted this year isn’t my favorite, but I still like the pop of color they add to the front porch.

I love her story because it was a response to one of my blog posts, and her response to my writing is one of the things I cherish about her. She is always so encouraging and excited about what I’m working on. Her sharing this story was a way to connect with me and let me know she cares about my vocation and my avocations. I do not take this for granted.

I also love this story because of the lessons it can teach us about what we share with others, not just in the garden but also in life. In the case of my mother-in-law, she took a gift and multiplied it, sharing her talent for gardening and a gift of beauty with others near and far. She could have kept them all for herself, but she reached out with a gift to others.

For those of you who garden or have yards to care for, imagine the difference between a neighbor who shares beautiful flowers with you as opposed to the neighbor who – through neglect – shares weeds and tangled mess with you. Or maybe you’re the neighbor sharing the poison ivy vines? (I don’t judge: poison ivy can sprout up quickly and in the most expected places!)

In this same way, we choose what we share in life, too. We can share flowers or weeds with everyone around us in the way we speak to them, treat them and even ignore them. We can put up a thorny exterior that keeps others away from us, or we can be soft and fuzzy and inviting like those geranium stems, and cheerful like their blossoms.

I hope you’ll take a moment in the coming days to think about what you share with others. If you need a tangible reminder of what you want to share, put a red geranium on your front porch to remind you each time you leave your house that only you can choose what you give to the world.