Tag: Seasons

#ThursdayTreeLove | O Sweet Spontaneous

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Blossom 2023

In these parts everything is blooming–the pear blossoms, cherry blossoms, almond blossoms, dogwoods, redbuds, and more. All the blooming trees are blossoming all at once–in a glorious, spontaneous display of spring.

O Sweet Spontaneous
e.e. cummings

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
             fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
        beauty      how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
         (but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
             thou answerest
them only with
                              spring)

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

#ThursdayTreeLove | Autumn Fractal

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Autumn Fractal

My favorite season has begun! Let’s celebrate with gumbo and [despite what some of my NOLA folk say] pumpkin spice everything!

It is Agape Day, an annual day of service at my University, so the campus was quiet and virtually empty this morning. Since my service activity was scheduled for the afternoon, I took advantage of the solitude and took a nice walk through campus. I knew there would be photo-worthy scenes, but I intentionally left my camera behind. I wanted to just be without fiddling with camera settings and composition. 

My soul exhaled.

It had been far too long since my last “unhurried” tree walk. I stood in awe as the wind gently shook the leaves from trees and giggled inwardly as the shadows danced at my feet.

I know what’s coming.

In the midst of the busy, the chaotic, the clamoring of all the things for time, attention, and energy, there is a subtle movement toward order, leisure, and rest. 

I’m looking forward to the kinder pace that autumn brings and to that space of time when the days are short and the nights are long. 

Time for my soul to exhale. 

Happy Autumn!

About the Image: This is my autumn fractal, entitled “Falling Leaves.” It represents all the things I felt today as I walked through the trees and watched the leaves dance and play all the way to the ground. I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

#ThursdayTreeLove | Appreciating the Colors of Late Summer

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Crepe Myrtle Duo

I couldn’t resist photographing the tree above as I walked to the science complex to meet with STEM leadership last Thursday. I also couldn’t resist transforming it to photo-art. 😀 I love how, as we are heading into the autumn season, the crepe myrtles are still holding on to color–not everywhere, of course, but certainly here in Northern Alabama. It was a little odd to see two earlier today sitting brightly next to a small oak which is already showing signs of autumn. Summer has been chaotic and far too busy. Though I am looking forward to the quieter, soul-settling days of autumn, I can appreciate the colors of the waning days of summer. 

In case you have been following along and wondering why I broke my posting streak (34 days!) leading to my blogiversary, Cy (the friend who challenged me) modified the challenge and decided I should reach a different milestone on my blogiversary. 🙂 More on that next week…Until then, be sure to make room in your heart for the trees!

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

Sunflowers and Poetry | Let April Be April

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2022-04-30_113616

Since I’ve been an academic all my adult life, I have no idea what the end of April feels like for people whose lives are not planned around two 15-week segments. For me, it brings stress and anxiety over the ever-increasing unfinished business of the semester and May “cleanup” work, not to mention all the end-of-the-school-year events and deadlines for my son. When my student France Régine sent me the poem below a few days ago–a day after I’d seen the post on Morgan Harper Nichols‘ Instagram feed–I decided to use the poem to close out the month. It is a beautiful reminder that it is okay to “just be” and not feel the need to solve the problems of the world in one go.

Morgan Harper Nichols
Let April be April,
and let May be May.
And let yourself
just be
even in
the uncertainty.
You don’t have to fix everything.
You don’t have to solve everything.
And you can still find peace
and grow
in the wild
of changing things.

About the Image: The Current card above came from Jamise L–another sunflower lover–I met through Jennifer Belthoff’s Write Together and Love Notes. Her encouraging note came just when I needed it. My friends have been awesome and have kept me well-supplied with sunflower goodies, so there are many more sunflowers to share. Even though this ends our (almost) week of Sunflowers and Poetry, stay tuned to Pics and Posts for more sunflower love!

Welcome, Winter!

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Paddington with Snowball

Welcome, winter. Your late dawns and chilled breath make me lazy, but I love you nonetheless.  —Terri Guillemets

Paddington, one of my favorite bears, and I are dropping in to wish you a “Happy Winter!” Stay warm and safe!

About the Image: “Paddington with Snowball,” the image above, is featured on a winter card my Love Notes friend Gina B sent last Christmas. Paddington is adapted from the original, illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. I have been looking forward to sharing him for a whole year! 😀

Gratitude and Grace | Start Here

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Pumpkin Trio-1

I can’t help thinking no word will ever be as full of life as this world,   
I can’t help thinking of thanks. –Suji Kwock Kim, “Slant”

Since we are in the season of thanksgiving, my bestie enlisted a group of women in her circle to participate in a gratitude challenge this month. She shared a November calendar that offers daily prompts and invites participants to ponder on the things for which they are grateful. 

Indeed, it has been a challenge selecting just one thing daily, but that’s a good thing. It underscores a life overflowing with goodness, and I do not take that for granted.

What I really appreciate about the prompts is that they invite us to focus on experiences instead of material things. I am indeed grateful for the necessities and the creature comforts, but it is experiences, not things, that make a full life.

Thankfulness doesn’t have to begin or end in November, so if you’d like to start a gratitude practice, start with the simple prompts we used: Gratitude Journal Prompts.

Until next time…

The Hot Woman

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La FemmeJPG

“La Femme” from paruspaper

It’s probably not best to begin a “Happy Summer” post with the one reason I do not like the summer season so much. However, I stood in the hot sun for almost two hours this morning at a grand opening event, so I am really not too fond of the “return of the sun.” Of course, here in the Deep South, it’s been “summer” for a while, so today feels less like the first (full) day of summer and more like midsummer hell (to those of us who do not like the heat). 

Thus, I say, “Happy Summer” with a bit of sand and ocean from my Love Notes friend and literary twin, Gina B. (whose favorite season is summer), and a poem by Derek Walcott. “Midsummer, Tobago” perfectly describes early summer (or late spring) in certain parts of the USA and the long days of the (paradoxically) brief summer season. 

Midsummer, Tobago
Derek Walcott

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.

Happy Summer, Y’all!

Sun’s Out!

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You may already know I have a thing for bunnies and why I love the bunnies, so I interrupt your Tuesday to share cheeky bunny mail. Why? Because I have spent the last 30 minutes or so staring mindlessly at numbers and letters on a computer screen and getting nowhere. My brain is screaming, “No more!”

We are having a gorgeous day and outdoors is beckoning. It is time to heed the bunny call. Time to get my “buns” outside, unexposed, of course!

I hope you can catch some sun this week!

Buns Out

About the Image: My Love Notes friend, Kelly C, sent the card above last spring to celebrate the season. It is the perfect card for early spring weather in Northern Alabama. Tune in later this week for more bunny mail.

Suddenly Spring!

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Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.

 

The Japanese magnolias and flowering pear trees have reached full bloom. Soon the blossoms will fall and the branches will fill with the cheerful green of early spring.

Winter has its purpose, but oh, how I’ve longed for this first day of spring! After a few days of rain, the day is bright and beautiful, and I’m looking forward to some much-needed time in the sun!

Nothing says spring in certain parts like the daffodil. I’ve been seeing clusters of them crop up in the last few weeks–at the edges of driveways, encircling trees, around mailboxes, and in the floral section of the grocery stores–like an invitation to this moment.

I was happy to find the cheerful watercolor of daffodils [above] in my mailbox. Eileen V, one of my Love Notes friends, sent it in celebration of International Women’s Day, but in the dismal last few days of winter, it was a welcome reminder of the sunny, hopeful, healing days to come!

Wishing you a…

Happy Spring!

Berries.

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I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them reason enough and–I wish to live. –Lorraine Hansberry, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black