Heartstrings

This is a photo of my precious family at a gathering of friends from long ago.  We gathered to reconnect in the midst of so many variables,  new addresses, older adult children with beautiful lives that seem so well-suited to their gifts and graces, and the phenomenon of being "family" during the holiday....happy to see each other but very happy about private lives lived away from home.  We are smiling like it's been easy.  We are smiling because we love to have good visits with good friends and good food.  We are a family that has braved some very stormy seas in the last decade....I rejoice that we smile, and hold each other in gratitude.  There is an unusual freedom here....freedom to love, and to receive the changes that have come our way.   To remain open, to receive the many joys, comforts, failures, and triumphs that life has brought along the path.....this is a new skill for me, a very good process to be in, and I am grateful.

My Friend

Please let me introduce you to my new little friend, Beta.  She is like sunshine on a spring morning, where you really want to stay in the warmth and soak it all in.  She has a smile that can warm up a room, and a laugh that is lusty and loud.  She calls me "Solomon" because that was how she heard it the first time we met.....I hope she never alters it.  She loves little dogs, scrambled eggs, taco dinners, "Annie" the Musical,  Babar the elephant,  Dora the Explorer, and Hello Kitty.  Beta loves the color purple, pronouncing it "pwoo-pel".  We both like bugs, and guinea pigs, and tiny frogs.  

Beta arrived in America four days after the earthquake in Haiti.  The timing of her arrival, and the beautiful place that she has in her family makes Providence as glorious as it gets here on this earth.  In this photo she is holding her family's house sign.....ssoooooo happy to have a family, and a MOM and a DAD, and brothers and a sister.  The whole thing reeks of gratitude....her gratitude in receiving all of the stuff that adoption has given her.....security, purpose. happy days and plans for more, the comfort of love and the comfort of care, care that won't end today or be spread thin at the orphanage.  Beta makes me think differently about all kinds of things that I am certain I take for granted.  

Industrious One

I have a daughter who is industrious.    Truly, this girl can "get it done".  Her mind THINKS this way, mine feels like mush in comparison.  I think about colour, hue, scents, and texture.  She thinks date, time, reason, and motive.  I let lunch interrupt any process; she won't eat lunch until the process is finished.  I read to "let go"......she reads to "grab onto".   I can't sit at my desk if there is a mess all around it; she can't work without the crazy piles everywhere!  Paperwork is worthy of an entry in the planner for this girl.....I stuff mine under the new platter of mosses and mushrooms.  I want to get my head around Latin and French;  she remembers phrases from a quiz five years ago or the song on the tape playing in the car when she was six.  I want to learn to communicate; she takes the class, and then teaches me.  I see the lovely Italian coat in the window while we are shopping; she quietly reminds me of the outstanding bill she needs to consider six months from now.   I have been so broke I couldn't pay to have a haircut; she says she  can certainly figure out my style....and she does, every six weeks....for free.

Like a crocus, long in the soil, this girl has been preparing for something much bigger than I understand.  Her real life and world are just beginning.  I will watch with baited breath.  I will admire, and rejoice.  I will see some of the strength that has been brewing used to help the world in a new way.  I will see the beauty enhanced and understood.  I will watch with delight as she takes her understanding of "self" and begins now to touch the lives of many others.  

Mushrooms, after the rain

"Mushrooms are among the most mysterious life forms.  The ancient Greeks believed they came from Zeus's lightning because they appeared after the rains and reproduced and grew inexlicably.  In the Middle Ages, the circular patterns formed by some mushrooms were dubbed "fairy rings" and were thought to be the work of the "little people," who supposedly danced around them at midnight.

Mushrooms are mysterious, but not as they were once thought to be .  They appear suddenly, and often in places where they have not been seen before.  They have, in fact,  been out of sight, growing underground or beneath bark.   And much remains to be learned about fungi; some species contain dangerous toxins, many of which are not fully understood.  

Some mushrooms are of course edible.  Since Roman times, fungi have been famous as gourmet fare.  Truffles, boletes, chanterelles, and moels, all of which grow in North America, often fetch fantastic prices.  And with good reason: after tasting wild fungi, most people find the common cultivated mushroom bland and uninteresting.  Mushrooms also play a vital role in the world's ecosystem.  Many land plants could not thrive in their absence, since some establish a symbiotic relationship with fungi, exchanging essential nutrients.  And were it not for mushrooms, which hasten decomposition, many dead plants and fallen trees would take far longer to decay."

At age 49, I have fallen in love with mushrooms and fungi.  I am just beginning to identify the common mushrooms in North America...not to eat, but to sketch and to paint in my nature journals.   

The Fly

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