August Abundantly

"Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. " Michael Montaigne

August came with a blast of heat, humidity and ABUNDANCE.

We've had corn on the cob

Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant. All the bounty of sun, rain and HEAT.

The faucet of rain sitting over us all summer turned off this week requiring a good hour to water all of the planters. Which of course caused it to rain buckets yesterday.  The sky grew dark and ominous and then sheets of water came down.

Can you see how hard it's raining?  As quickly as the storm came it was gone. The skies cleared. I met Linda and her grand daughters for a swim,  before it grew dark again and boom, another torrential downpour.

Summer, she's fickle in her moods, warm and sunny one moment, stormy the next, suffocating with heat and humidity in her too tight embrace.

"The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness" Montaigne"

By that measure, Summer is one fine soul, even if I find her a little hard to take.

This week we are planning trips for late summer, fall and our winter escape. Such fun and exciting prospects await us.  It's especially fun for me since Prince Charming does all of the planning and makes all of the arrangements.  All I do is sit back and enjoy the expectation!

Yesterday's two sudden and powerful thunderstorms reminded me however, of the paradoxes of life.  It's wonderful to anticipate future delights.  Anticipation enhances our appreciation of future events.  But it's also important to appreciate the NOW, this moment.

P.C. and I sat on the porch last night for an extra dose of the eeriness of a big storm's sky as it clears, gray, then green, orange and finally pink as the sky cleared just as the sun set. The fountain tinkling away, crickets and tree frogs singing. We took time to savor this August moment and to look ahead. We were doing a fine job of balancing the NOW with the FUTURE all wrapped in this moment.

This morning dawned bright and clear and thankfully COOLER! I hot footed it over to Annie's garden across the street.

 Annie is one of the best gardeners I know.  Her garden inspires me every week.  She's generous in letting me nose around her garden any time  I want and she's shared so many plants and good gardening advice (life advice too) over the years.  Let's go take a look:

I love this sweet little spot in Annie's garden.  This bed of cone flowers, joe pye weed and grayfeather (the yellow flowers in the foreground) sit under a weeping willow tree.  Is there a more romantic tree in the world than a weeping willow?

In addition to her big beautiful perennial beds, Annie does amazing things with pots of annuals.  Pots, in my opinion, are a labor of love.  While I can let ignore my perennial beds, letting weeds invade and letting them dry out; pots take tons of attention.  You've got to water them almost daily, feed them, dead-head the spent flowers.  It takes love, dedication and perseverance.   You can tell a lot about what kind of person a gardener is when no one is looking.  Annie's garden speaks to an abundance of care, compassion, love and dedication.  Don't you agree?

Annie wins the gold ribbon for the trifecta of gardening.  She's got a beautiful and weed-free vegetable garden.

curly kale 

 You can't believe how hard it is to live across the street from such an amazing gardener.  I could be just the tiniest bit bitter about her above average abilities except that I'm maintaining my zen-likeness and breathing through any envy I might be feeling.  Just the tiniest bit of comparing going on, nothing worth mentioning.

LOOK at these tomatoes!  Gorgeous no?

Pretty soon this guy will be ripe for the picking.  And then Annie will flag me down and invite me to share her produce.  All my green envy disappears as the juice of  an August tomato grown by a woman I love and admire drips down my chin.

If there's a taste of abundance, I think it tastes like an August tomato.

Have a lovely, August abundance of a weekend Wonder Ones.

Serendipity

Recently I spent an afternoon at my friend Linda's kitchen table drinking wine with Linda, Diana and Judy.

I had a lot of stuff I "should" have been doing.  I should have been home cleaning MY house, I should have been checking on room availability for the new Sunday school class, I should have been mailing out birthday cards and notes of encouragement to dear friends, I should have been putting a press release together for a film festival.

Instead I spent the whole afternoon drinking wine in front of a cheery fire in a stone hearth in Linda's kitchen talking about philosophy, politics, the French philosopher Montaigne, sexuality, romance with our husbands, children, and friends who occasionally annoy us--it was great fun!

Reflecting back on the day and how it all turned out, the house eventually got cleaned, the Sunday school class went off without a hitch, some of the birthday cards arrived a day or so late, and we decided to wait on the press release until we had more details ironed out.

I could have hurried home and missed out on Serendipity!

My dear friend Linda is my Serendipity Coach.  Just look at her house, it's full of little "moments".

Linda jokes that this is where her husband, Bob, pays the bills

Wouldn't you love this hornet's nest, minus the hornets of course, in your home? Linda confesses that there "might" have been just a few hornets left in the nest when she originally brought it in.  No hornets the afternoon we spent in front of the fireplace next to the nest!

I fell in love with Linda's orange chairs, 

and this little cutie (Annie) too!

Linda teaches me that laughter, friendship, good books, great conversation are all worth taking time from the "shoulds" of life.

In order to allow serendipity to sneak in, you've got to allow wide margins in your life.  When I studied art history in college, the professors talked about white space, or negative space as integral to design.  It wasn't "empty" space.  It serves a visual and harmonic purpose.  Just as wide margins in life serve a larger purpose. The only way to have time for serendipity is to leave empty space on your calendar.  Really can any of us accomplish more than three things in a day? 

I've found just trying to get three things done each day cuts into the possibility of allowing magic to occur.

Is there room at your table for magic, whimsy, chance?

If not, if your life is too crowded by "shoulds", how might you clear a little space for chance?!

When I lose inspiration, I just book a session with my Serendipity Coach Linda!

I'm as guilty as the next person of making life too crowded. Won't you share with me how you're making room in your life for Serendipity?