Tag Archives: hope

Spring hopes

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For those of you who have been wondering if I’ve been neglecting my garden during the early spring with all the running my husband and I have been doing, you’re right. I have neglected my garden, and as a result, the chipmunks are winning a battle I didn’t realize we were already fighting this season.

When my husband and I came home from an out-of-town trip early this week, he went outside and stayed outside for a looooong time. When he came inside, he was steaming mad. Why? A beautiful camellia had tipped over, its roots eaten/disturbed by chipmunks tunneling around everywhere.

After several years of barely blooming, that particular camellia bloomed more abundantly this year, and a few weeks back, I took some photos of it:

A beautiful young camellia just weeks ago

A beautiful young camellia just weeks ago

I’m glad now that I photographed it when I did, because it may not survive the chipmunk wars to bloom another season. Its lovely blooms stayed well past a typical camellia season, probably because we’ve had a mostly chilly spring so far.

redcamelliabloom2013

A showy bloom from the camellia

My husband propped the camellia back up, and he filled in around it with dirt and my usual arsenal against varmints: permatill (tiny rocks that act as a soil conditioner and supposedly also as a deterrent to burrowing rodents like chipmunks); holy moley (mole repellent that apparently does not repel chipmunks); more dirt and new mulch; and holly tone (fertilizer to strengthen the camellia).

We have hope that our efforts will save the camellia, but it has already shed several yellow leaves, and the rest of the leaves look distressed. I’m not sure whether to cut it way back or leave it alone to see what parts may survive, if any. Master gardeners out there: I welcome your advice.

I’ve spent the last few days weeding and planning next steps for the garden, all the while listening for blasted chipmunks to chirp their way past the red camellia. I’m also trying to figure out the best way to protect the other two camellias we have, along with a young susanqua that is a transplant from my mother’s garden. Heaven help the chipmunks if they go there. Continue reading →

There but for the grace of God

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Spring has finally come to my part of the world, and I promise those of you still waiting with snow on the ground, spring will come to you, too. One sure sign of spring is March Madness, that time in the college basketball season when many of us spend too much time in front of the television and too much time at work talking about how our bracket picks are holding up.

On Easter, my parents came over for lunch, and they were somewhat incredulous that I wasn’t planning to watch Duke play Louisville later in the day. Their incredulity is fair, because when I lived under their roof, I was as avid a basketball fan as they come. And at one point, when I played in a youth orchestra at Duke and dreamed of attending Duke for college, I was an avid Duke fan. Watching Lousville beat Duke in the 1986 Championship game was very painful for me, and so I’m never anxious to watch Louisville play.

As Robert Frost writes, “Way leads on to way,” and I ended up attending an ACC school, but not of the blue and white ilk. My team made a hasty exit from the NCAA tournament this year, and so my interest level in the rest of the tournament had dropped to near zero.

So when I turned the television on Sunday afternoon, I hadn’t really been planning to watch basketball. I simply wanted to spend some downtime watching one of the shows I recorded from the past week. But the television was tuned to the basketball, and when I realized it was the Duke-Louisville game, I decided to watch for a few minutes.

I wish I hadn’t turned on the TV at all, because moments into my watching came that awful moment. You basketball fans know the one I mean. Louisville’s Kevin Ware was trying to block a Duke player’s 3-point shot, and when he came down … well, there was no mistaking the leg break. I cried out. I cried out again when the network replayed his leg breaking in slow motion. It is an image burned on my brain, and it made me feel sick. (I will not watch it again, and for those of you who haven’t seen it, I hope you’ll trust my decision not to link to a video of it here. It’s horrific, and you just don’t need to watch it.)

Continue reading →

The sower and the sun (for this rainy day)

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I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but where I live, it’s cold, rainy, dreary and gray. Ugh! When the weather is overcast for several days in a row during the summer, it’s not so bad, because there are bright flowers blooming, and their color keeps everything from taking on an ashen quality.

I’ve found myself grumbling a bit, though, about our latest string of rainy, winter days, with no promise of the sun in sight. And yet, even in my winter garden, there’s a reminder of things beautiful and bright and cheerful, alive because of the sunlight. A profusion of camellia blooms:

Camellias!

Camellias!

This small camellia bush is one of three that my husband and I have planted in our garden, and it’s always the first one to bloom each winter. Its numerous, large blooms are this winter’s reward for me finally figuring out what kind of fertilizer camellias like (I used Holly-tone on them this past fall).

The perfect camellia bloom?

The perfect camellia bloom?

I don’t know why this bush blooms first, or why it has so many more buds and blooms on it than the other two. I suspect one of the others doesn’t get enough sunlight, and my husband doesn’t think it gets enough water either.

But the third camellia is almost equally situated with this one in the garden, gets the same amount of Holly-tone, light and water, and though a bit taller, doesn’t have nearly the quantity of buds on it as this one that’s blooming now.

As I puzzle over what makes one camellia flourish and another just stay alive, I’m reminded of the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3-9) who sowed seeds all over the place: by the roadside, on the rocky places, among the thorns, and on the good soil.  Continue reading →

October’s colors: orange and … pink?

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Let me begin by saying that my prayers are with all of you who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. For those who want to help with recovery efforts, the American Red Cross is a great place to start.

October’s colors
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the colors of October. It’s hard to get through the month without seeing a lot of orange and black as we begin our preparations for Halloween. But these days, it’s hard to go without seeing a lot of pink everywhere, too.

I’m grateful that there are organizations raising money for research to defeat this illness. I’ve known too many who have lost friends, sisters, wives, mothers to this disease. You probably can list too many names of your own.

Everyone seems to be getting in on the breast cancer awareness act, and I worry a bit about pink ribbon weariness. Komen races/walks popped up all over the country to celebrate October as breast cancer awareness month. At least one recent NASCAR race had a pink stripe painted on the inside edge of the track (don’t ask me how I know this). Delta’s flight attendants wore pink shirts and served pink lemonade for a donation. I even saw a Delta plane tug on the tarmac painted pink. At the gym today, I saw someone carrying around a pink-ribboned Evian water bottle. Like I said, pink everywhere.

For me, seeing pink everywhere complicated my emotions, and I struggled with a rising anger over all the pink. I was being selfish, because of what I was facing in my own life this month. The second week of October, I went for an annual mammogram. Continue reading →

Celebrating the good aunt

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Today marks the end of the good aunt series here on my blog, though you’ll probably still find me posting about the topic from time to time. But first …

A prayer for those in Sandy’s path
Before I launch into today’s post, though, let me say a quick prayer for those in the path of Sandy: Father God, we know you are more powerful than the most powerful hurricane, and we ask you to protect those in Sandy’s path. For those who are afraid, please give them a sense of calm. For those who are weak, please give them strength. For those who are facing loss, please give them friends and family to comfort them. For those who are thrill-seeking idiots, please send them a guardian angel and keep the brave folks who try to save them from harm. Thank you for keeping us in Your loving hands during life’s storms. Amen.

Good aunts to celebrate
There are several “good aunts” I want to thank and celebrate to close out the series, including a few of my own good aunts. I’ve spoken early in the series about my great aunts, who really were the grandmothers I needed growing up.

In this picture, one of my closest aunts (my mom’s sister) celebrates her wedding day with her new husband, while my great aunt Clare, right, makes her laugh.

My aunt celebrates her wedding day with her own good aunt, there on the right, making her laugh.

My aunt Mary Lou was vibrant and smart and loving, and even though she was busy with a full-time teaching job and three children of her own, she always found time to make me feel special. She taught me to love museums and literature and movies and time with family. Her overseas trips taught me about the exciting possibilities of traveling to other countries and experiencing different cultures, and she often brought a small treasure home for me. She was one of the earliest encouragers of my writing, and I wish she were still alive to read my blog, because I know her insights and questions would continue to make me a better writer.

I’m grateful for the years I got to know her, and I’m so glad she got to meet my husband (whom she liked very much, and not just because he had the good sense to love her niece.) She wasn’t perfect, but when I think of her, the memories of her that flood back most strongly are her smile and her laugh. She was my good aunt.  Continue reading →