It feels like living when old things that I have always loved come back the forefront.

I've been listening to Sixpence again. I went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens with Jeffery and pulled out my old drawing book again. I haven't been writing (like the good little scout I ought to be) but I have been getting interested in life again.

Jeffery found out there was a lecture at the Chicago Botanical Gardens on English roses the day that we could go. I bounded around a few times and then pondered if my father had managed to kill all the English roses that we had had (You know its bad if something dies on my father. He's very careful about these planty things). All our roses were dead but who cares?!?! This lecture means life.

I had never been to the Gardens. The architecture was cool and soothing. It reminded me in some ways of Bethel. Bethel had been designed by a Japanese architect. They couldn't afford what all his designs called for but they tried to remain somewhat true to what he planned. The Botanical buildings had the coolness and lines that comes from Asian beauty meeting the Midwest landscape.
Something else that came into high relief…the care bestowed on the plants outside. Every tree and bush had been so carefully pruned and tended. I've been in gardens that have been cared for but this was different. Masses and masses of trees and bushes and every single one carefully and precisely cared for. There's a lot of love in the Gardens. A lot.

Our lecturist turned out to be a sassy middle age woman who was enthused not just about roses but flowers. And not just flowers but life and living in this life. She gave us a website to order lady bugs from (!!!!) and other nifty things. I'm on a high level of enthusiasm and planning. This year…definitely a new triad of english roses. they will live! they will!

and speaking of living…life with Jeffery- what can it really compare to? It's the life I have always wanted. It's talking about things that go deep down into the sea and move in those far away currents. It's like when I go on walks and the beautiful is so spectular that it hurts my eyes and I have to turn away for a brief moment. It breaks my heart and makes me live bigger and stronger. Slowly, slowly, my eyes are getting accustomed to so much beauty.
We walk and we talk. We lazy around and we talk. We watch movies and we talk. We nap and we talk. We just talk!
The future looks so good. There's things to work through but they are being worked through! and not waited to work on a “better day” or “when there's more time.” They are in progress and they are progressing.

So…l'chaim! that's where the snow falls.