A Tenderness in the Air

There’s been a strange shimmer in the air, the last few days. I first noticed it, looking west across the gardens in the long, slanting, late-afternoon sunlight. It took me a minute to register it, and even then I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t just imagining it. All the world seemed softly illuminated, the acid-green...

Continue reading

Solstice, Pause.

The ground has started to freeze up, a little, in our current cold snap. It scarcely did at all last winter, cold days repeatedly interspersing with mild ones. And it’s early now, I think, for the hard ground of winter, compared to my childhood days in this city, and the organic garden I used...

Continue reading

A Snow Story

And now it’s December. The first snow of the season fell the night before last – less than half an inch all told, but it touched every tree and surface with magic, the morning sun sparkling on it all until it melted away.  The story below is the tale of my first snow, and...

Continue reading

And now it’s Autumn

The autumnal equinox roared into town like an express train last week, glorious plummeting temperatures taking us from summer to fall in the space of a day. That’s not the way it usually works, of course. The change in temperature, and the shift in feeling and temperament that it encourages, normally lags the annual...

Continue reading

A strange gift

It’s turned into a hot summer after all, catching up after a long, slow, cold spring. I’ve found the days slipping away from me once again, as I turned my attention to other responsibilities, and I’ve scarcely entered a new post here since my birthday. But now it’s nearly September, and as I find myself longing for...

Continue reading