Not Tinkerbell, and not (I don't think) a fairy - but what is the tiny yellow object in the midst of the lilac? It caught my eye on my walk this morning as I headed down the creekside road, looking for - if for anything - the "peed in a puddle" lilac stage, but blossoms in a day had scattered, melted into wet asphalt or otherwise vanished. Instead I saw this tiny madly whirling object, spinning as if propelled by a miniature maelstrom of its own, because it didn't seem particularly breezy, the lilac leaves perhaps rustled but were for the most part still. This little thing spun like a tiny top. I approached it and - yes, I know I sound a little mad here - but it stopped its whirling, as if having sensed my approach. It's so strange to say that I had a sense of its being somehow sentient, alien & sentient at the same time. I was a little afraid to touch it. What if this is the form aliens from outer space take? Why would I wish to touch it? But I did pass my hand above it, to see if it was suspended from a gossamer spider's thread perhaps, which it didn't seem to be because the tiny thing didn't move. Anyway. I know, very fanciful - but still - I don't know what it was. Perhaps a seed pod of some kind but - no surprise - I can't identify it, and can't say I've seen others, though perhaps there are a zillion about. Certainly it's the season for the tiny green maple seed helicopters that are all over the place - but the teeny whirling dervish that went still was neither that color nor shape. And so a tiny mystery it remains. It would have been handy to have the wildflower experts with me, I wonder if they too might have exclaimed - or if not, then peaceably identified it, and possibly - because she and her husband are great foragers (à la that brilliant young Danish chef) - offered cooking instructions.

Up in the aerie now, a peaceful summery hour, tree frogs occasionally whirring, mourning dove cooing. Quite warm and humid, and the sun is trying to break through though tonight there may be storms. Thought about you a lot today - well, when don't I? A little memory - you had wanted to convert your garage - the upstairs of it - into a habitable space, one that might be yours, a place to retreat to. I remember your mentioning that (when was this? in what context? I don't recall just now, yet vividly recall looking at you as you said it, and you - I think - soberly looking back at me) and my feeling very sympathetic, or maybe empathetic is the better word - of course you needed a space. I wonder if it ever got built. I have no idea but somehow I suspect not. But I hope so, for your sake. Male or female, we need our caves, or our aeries. Or maybe certain of us do, of certain temperaments.

It's funny, I just picked up a book at the library that was waiting for me on reserve, the memoir of writer and gardener Margaret Roach, entitled, "and I shall have some peace there: trading in the fast lane for my own dirt road"  (link here). I have seen her website, and driving past, glimpsed her little house a couple of times over the years, recognizing from TV her resplendently green shaded corner.  So you see - she needed her getaway, her retreat too. Darling, I really hope you have one. Or perhaps it is where you are right now, so long as you're there. Perhaps that works. I always enjoyed, years & years ago, my long sojourns at the Lancaster - not only because it was the lap of luxury, but because it was just such a blessedly quiet, private space all my own, week after week on end.

My dearest, can you tell I'm babbling? Just tapping on the keys - on the wall - to you. Can I tell you how, in the midst of thinking of you with some focus today, I discovered that batteries don't abruptly die - well, they do - but in fact they weaken over time, and so - let's just say - it wasn't just me somehow having trouble? And so this morning the first pair of batteries did in fact, to my dismay at dawn, give out entirely, and so I groped in the shadows in the nighttable for the second fresh set, and had to turn on the bedside lamp and even don readers to figure out the + and - ends of the magical enablers. And OMG, I'd forgotten (had my expectations, in the space of a month, reduced as easily as that?) about the original power - and ... oh my... what a difference fresh batteries make. I truly am feeling vitruvianly 21st century indeed.

I also, in frugal fashion, sought to recharge the spent batteries, and was informed by D that these were non-rechargeable (who knew? there was a time (a) that I had no idea that batteries were rechargeable, followed by time (b) when based on (a) I assumed that all batteries were rechargeable). Two steps forward, one step back, in the 21st century department. But I am enjoying myself - extraordinarily - and thinking of you very much, and well -- so it goes, at least for now, or perhaps for always, til we meet again, properly, for coffee, on the other side of the gates.

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Also on my walk - a wild geranium - pink









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Also, in the afternoon, on my drive back from the library, a brief stop at the river.  Song running through my mind that KZE plays a lot, "Maryanne do you remember, that time by the river, when we were seventeen...." 

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Hope all is well with you, darling. XOXO