My computer sits marooned under our painter’s drop cloth. For the first time in my life as a journalist, I carry a recycled composition book and pen outside, and write.
It feels good. How could it not when I’m overlooking sixty new lavender plants happily growing on a green slope? My husband and neighbor accompany birdsong with background lawnmower music.
The natural and man-made live in harmony as Mel swipes an apple off the tree and bites into it. He holds it up and smiles.
The weather is ideal for open-air musings. Breezy. Low humidity. Sunny. With most of summertime’s gardening and canning behind, the blue sky waits to infuse my spirit again with faith, hope and love.
I pray to God for my daily dose of forgiveness and wisdom.
Today is September 11, 2020, and evokes memories of New York City’s Twin Towers in flames. And the day I drove our third-born daughter to Chicago where she’d enrolled in art school. We arrived to the city gathered downtown to rally in support of the families who lost loved ones, and America’s safety against terrorism.
I didn’t want to leave my youngest child to duke it out alone with Chicago. But she said, “Mom, I have to do this.”
A familiar refrain raising three girls.
Thankfully, my baby overcame an assault and three more Chicago moves and returned to Michigan, found her place in our Great Lakes State.
The scent of fresh-mown lawn wafts over the landscape. I absorb September’s colors; the border of tall, amber grasses, tinged russet of a maple, the persistent cardinal flower blooming in the copper pot once used for stirring McIntoshes on an open fire.
We love homemade applesauce.
But back to this story.
After Roland our painter renews my office, I’ll do one last weeding of this season to the stacks of books holed up in the study’s closet. My empty bookshelves loafing in the living room want some space for new books-poetry, biography, history, memoir, novels, and gardening.
My list of new titles to preview grows daily.
It’s four o’clock on Friday, September 11, 2020, and the sun’s aglow on the pink petunias cascading from the hen house window box. Deadheading pays off.
The Rose of Sharon by the beehive blooms her last flurry of lavender petals. The three boxes of the hive painted the same color stand stacked in the shade. After a pest-free spring and summer, I’m fighting yellow jackets presently. The worker bees sacrifice their two-week life cycle in a valiant duel with the honey thieves.
I don’t know why I haven’t written outdoors all these years. A vitamin C and D and radiation-free environment encourage composition more so than sitting before a computer screen for hours.
Dear Reader, I recall a photo of Robert Frost sitting on a porch with his writing table on his lap, pen in hand.
Indeed, a marooned computer on a fine September day is a wholesome thing. Makes one feel a bit Robert Frost-ish.
Contact Iris at irisleeu@sbcglobal.net.
