“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” (-Alice Walker)

This morning, I did some sketching, and then, as I was browsing through an old art book, I couldn’t help smiling.

I’d forgotten that long ago, I had tucked flowers inside the pages of this book, and so it was sweet to open the pages and have brilliant colored pansies burst upon the pages I was reading.

Do you press flowers?

I used to take them, sit the dried flowers on pretty stationery pages, and then press clear contact paper over them, to make pretty cards. I haven’t done that in years. As you can see, I’m no artist about this. Some of them, by chance, are perfectly placed on the page and they come out looking elegant.

Others are a bit ruffled by the experience,…

or look a bit worse for wear…

…and some,…well, let’s face it, some just come out looking like Yosemite Sam.

Pressed leaves in the fall are gorgeous, too. In our guest room, one day, I opened up a book on Scottish history and found beautiful leaves all throughout it. For whatever reason, the flowers and leaves both keep their vibrant colors for quite some time. I suppose they don’t get at the air, all snug in their cozy homes there.

So, while I enjoyed finding these today, I popped them right back inside their pages, so that the next time someone picks up one of these books, they’ll have that same sense of surprise all over again.

“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” (-Boris Pasternak)

"I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled..." (TS Eliot)

"I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.”

(-TS Eliot, from The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock)

“Family—that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our innermost hearts, ever quite wish to.” (-Dodie Smith)

Top o’ the mornin’ to ye’!

Sure 'n it's St Patrick’s Day,...

...and today, I’m remembering my Scotch-Irish grandparents and my mom. St. Patrick's Day is one of those days that make me think of family and my ancestors and what they mean to me.

My grandmother always used to tell me, “Never forget your British Heritage.”

Some years ago, I sat in an amphitheatre outdoors at a local college, on a beautiful spring day, and met the wonderful poet, Seamus Heaney. I heard him reciting this poem that describes his father and grandfather. He recognized the enormity of their influence on his own life, and wrote about them often in his beautiful poems:

Digging

(-Seamus Heaney)

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

(Susan and Edward, my grandparents)

Happy St Paddy’s Day to you all!

"Smile and be happy. You are in Venice." (-Deborah Horne)

“To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.” (-Alexander Herzen)

Venice is truly the Queen of the Adriatic.

Several years ago, I spent some time in this most magical of places that's like no other, and I was captivated as so many others have been.

I was there during the summer months, when the evening cafe concert music filled the Piazza San Marco, and the gentle waters lapped against the square. The pigeons that flocked to the square during the daylight hours disappeared for the night. In their place, people danced to the sounds of the dueling musicians around the piazza, and the Caffe Florian, built in 1720, with its ballooning white curtains over arched colonnades, opened its arms to me, as it has to visitors for centuries.

Everywhere in Venice, there are boats: vaporetto that carry you from island to island, and the wonderful gondolas seem to glide effortlessly, shimmering across the water. One wanders through Venice as through a maze, discovering beautiful piazzas at every turn, but here is a maze where you could willingly remain lost forever.

There is something so different in

Venice from any other place in

the world, that you leave at

once all accustomed habits and

everyday sights to enter an

enchanted garden.

(-Mary Shelley)

“…you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens” (-e.e. cummings)

This weekend was the first time in quite a while that I had some moments to breathe. Since it was beautifully warm and balmy, I spent hours in the garden, cleaning, weeding, trimming things back, and just in general getting things ready for spring.

I went to my favorite nursery, just to enjoy what was there, but also to pick out some pretty things for a friend’s birthday.

The place just does my heart good: I love its gurgling fountains, glorious urns, elegant topiaries, and rich, colorful flowers bursting out of baskets and pottery.

I left thinking that spring is definitely on its way. ..

"O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

prurient philosophers pinched

and poked

thee

; has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty .how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answereth

them only with

spring)"

(-e.e. cummings)

“If high heels were so wonderful, men would be wearing them.” (-Sue Grafton)

For many years, I swept out of the house every day on very high heels, heading out to work. In my jobs, I always had to wear nice suits and clothes, and along with them, I always wore beautiful high heels. I had a whole closet full of gorgeous shoes. Granted, they did make me feel tall and pretty…

…for about five minutes. Then, the balls of my feet would be in agony for the rest of the day.

As a young girl, my mother used to say, “You have to suffer to be beautiful,” and I remember thinking, “Then I do NOT want to be beautiful.” But I admit, I did wear an awful lot of high heels. They’re pretty, and they make your legs look longer.

I laugh now, because, while I do have a pair of shoe boots that are fairly high, and I frequently wear them with nice slacks on the road, for work, aside from those, my normal shoe of choice is as flat as possible. In fact, right now, I’m wearing slippers. Life is good...not particularly glamorous, mind you, but good!

“Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.” (-Faith Whittlesey)

Please note, all you sweet people who come and visit me:

(I’m probably going to try posting less frequently, just because with work as busy as it is, I can’t keep up a daily post. I’ll do the best I can!)