Seeds
After completing a four month production cycle in April, I have thus far spent my time in May puttering. Dabbling. Reading. Thinking. Eating. Planning. Planting. Voila: my baby herb garden!
And my first spring stab at night and day blends of herbal sun teas. Delicious. The one on the left is a chamomile/peppermint/lemongrass called Cha Cha at Adagio Teas (a pretty magical place if you do enjoy tea), and the second is a berry blend.
Actually, the whole purpose for this particular order of teas was to help Ruby, who has been having trouble sleeping. She drifts off to very heavy slumber in the evening with no problem, and feel free to throw a party in her room or vacuum it with the lights on, but then she wakes up around 2 AM and lies awake for hours and hours. I thought the chamomile might help. It sure did! The first night we gave it to her following dinner and her usual bed time routine (bath, teeth brushing, prayer) and then tucked her into her bed. Kris walked by her room several hours later and called me, "Um, Mary, you should see this..."
There she was, passed out cold on the floor of her room, in front of her bureau, drawer open, wearing two nightgowns and clutching her toothbrush. It seemed that she had sleep walked through a second night time routine! Hilarious, but also a little sad and very vulnerable! I really wish I had taken a photo. She didn't wake at all that night.
Recently I received an e-mail from my friend Elli saying that they had a dead tree in their yard, a Weeping Acacia, that they were going to get rid of; did I want it? My brain almost exploded with ideas, it was a super fun moment just thinking about the potential of this.
"How big is it?" I responded.
"7 or 8 feet," she wrote back.
Perfect.
When I arrived to help them dig it out (and yes, Kris and Jay actually did all the work. THANK YOU, Kris and Jay!) it was obviously taller than 8 feet. By seven or so feet.
"Rounding error!" said El. We laughed.
Hmmm. How to get it home? Who cares, it's even better looking than I expected. Will it fit through a double doorway? Barely? I'll take it.
It was no easy task removing it from the ground, because of course I insisted that I wanted the root ball in tact (THANK YOU, Kris and Jay!) Then they tied it to the top of our Forester (!) and brought it back to our house. Awesome.
So now I have this rare creative opportunity with a wily 15 foot canvas. I wander outside every morning with my coffee just to look and dream up the plan. I find there is an unanticipated sense of responsibility that I have for this guy because I cannot possibly improve upon it. It would look stunning just propped up or even suspended horizontally in an appropriate space. It already has such lovely features:
Aside from fantastic intertwines I love to see how branches changed their minds mid-growth to completely change direction. I won't get around to tackling this until the fall, though right now is by far my favorite phase of all creative endeavors: ideas phase. Seeds.
Mary, that story about Ru is enough to make me cry with the sweet sadness of your utterly lovely girl. I'm glad the tea helped. stu has the littlest version of your up-rootball-ed tree hanging out in our rockshop, waiting for his attentions. I can't wait to see what you do with yours.
bursting with love for you & yours, sue
Reply to this
Oh, I miss you! Hope you are all doing so well! Cannot wait to kick it again sometime in that fantastic rockshop...
Reply to this
Mary,
awesome. hey, a couple years ago, while in boston, I had the opportunity to visit the studio of a sculpture who was doing some really great work with natural objects. Much of his work involved digging up trees, turning them upside down and creating figurative walking pieces (roots as hair, limbs as...well, limbs). very cool stuff. He had some pieces in the convention center (if that would help you locate some visuals)...i'll try to find the artist name.
anyway, miss you!
Reply to this
Yay! I'd be super interested to check that out. I've been working with branches so long that I kicked myself for not having the guts to dream in trees. Well, the day has come. MISS YOU, TOO!!!!!
Reply to this