TRUMPETING INTO SPRING

My trumpet dafffodils are always among the first sign of Spring in my garden. Today as temperatures climbed above ninety it felt more like summer. I'm just glad the brutal winter is behind me.

CALLA LILIES

A SECOND LOOK

I couldn't resist shooting another picture of these tulips. In the past few days they have opened fully and they are having trouble holding their heavy heads up high. Some have lost a petal or two. They are past their prime and nearing their end, yet the combination of their grace and translucence somehow make them seem even more beautiful to me.

BOWED HEADS

The white tulips in my living room were drooping a bit this afternoon. I think they may just be bowing their heads to acknowledge today's Spring-like weather.

IN THE DEPTH OF WINTER...

... This beautiful floral arrangement has created Spring inside my home.

POINSETTIA

My life has been pretty sedentary lately as I recover from knee surgery and try to manage acute achilles tendonitis. I had another MRI yesterday and am waiting to learn what the next step (so to speak) will be in my recovery/rehab. Since late November I have spent most of my time on the couch in my living room. Directly in front of me on the coffee table is a poinsettia that arrived around Thanksgiving. I have spent a lot of time looking at the different pigments and designs in the flower. It is so different from the standard poinsettia fare. I am happy to report that it is still thriving for which I am grateful. It has been good company and in a quiet way has cheered me on. Hopefully, I will be up and around soon too.

AN AFTER CHRISTMAS GIFT

Late this afternoon, as I sipped a cup of coffee in my kitchen my eye was drawn to the way the light was hitting my Christmas cactus. I've had this cactus for more than twenty years and despite some real neglect over the years, like a good alarm clock it announces the arrival of the holiday season by bursting into bloom. Like a peacock it transforms itself from a solid green leaved plant into stems laden with bright blossoms. It is easy to overlook it during the year. It isn't showy and certainly doesn't draw attention to itself. But today sitting all alone near the window on my kitchen counter, I noticed how interesting it is even without the flowers.

RAINDROPS

A SIGN OF SPRING

I walked around my backyard this afternoon and spotted my first sign of spring. One brave little yellow crocus had bloomed and in an instant I felt more hopeful. Ah, the promise of spring.

ROSES

I brought home some roses tonight and liked the way the light and shadow played on the wall behind them. I guess I also hoped they might give me a rosier outlook. Okay.. bad joke.

SPRING

The weather turned warm today and hit sixty degrees on Long Island. It felt like Spring and if my Mom were not in the hospital I would have landed in Tampa at noon today to cover the New York Yankees spring training. It is beginning to look like Spring in her room with some really beautiful floral arrangements. Mom's hemoglobin dropped today and they found an aortic valve problem today. Lots of questions still, not many answers.

SURVIVAL

I've had this Christmas cactus for well over twenty years. It was tiny and in full bloom when I got it. It started to grow and I had to repot it. I kept it in the kitchen of my then one bedroom apartment. For weeks it would go without water as I traveled on business or just plain forgot about it. It never bloomed again. Eight years ago I moved into my current house. I almost left it behind, but a friend retrieved it. Ever since I have been in this house the cactus blooms faithfully at Christmas. Today as I struggled to make sense of things and grabbed at straws, I saw in this plant a metaphor. It was neglected and moved from one place to another. It survived the changes and bloomed in spite of it all.

LATE OCTOBER

I passed this street corner and the shadows caught my attention first. I liked how long the shadows were and the way they looked on the fence's repeated diamond pattern. Something about the geometry of it all interested me. I'm still not convinced about it as an image... maybe I was trying too hard to find a blog photo. Maybe, maybe not.

WATER LILIES

My mother's mother was the only grandparent I knew and we used to see her at least twice a week. Behind her house was a small pond that she had made long before I was born. The pond although quite small and shallow looked enormous to me and she used to stock it with goldfish. I was the youngest of her seven grandchildren and the only girl. My older cousins used to challenge me to jump over the pond. Invariably I fell for the "dare" and wound up landing smack in the middle of the pond. My mother would scold me, but Nannie always took my side and would talk to the boys in her gentle way. The one thing I remember about that pond was the beautiful water lilies growing on it. I had never seen water lilies before and of course whenever I see them now I remember my grandmother.

SO LONG SUMMER

My mother likes to remind me that I was born in the dog days of summer, maybe that explains why it is my favorite season. Sunflowers are synonymous with summer and usually reach their full glory in mid-August right around my birthday. No wonder they are my favorite flower. Today I went to the farm to get some fresh local produce and a field of sunflowers greeted me. I watched them blow in the breeze some still in full bloom facing the sun and some past their prime heads down facing the earth. Sunflowers are such happy flowers, they always make me smile. But today as I watched them and thought about summer's end I felt very sad.

MORNING GLORY

I am not a morning person but I have come to appreciate morning glories. These flowers which grow on a climbing vine typically last for a single morning and die in the afternoon. New flowers bloom on the vine each day. For years I have tried to pull morning glory vines from my garden. They climb on my other plants and twist around my shrubs, yet no matter how many times I pull them out they return. Today as the sun was setting I saw this lone morning glory which was climbing on my butterfly bush still open. Usually by the early evening the blooms have closed and the flower has begun to die. So I wondered if this bloom would see two mornings? I suppose if I knew that I didn't have the night ahead of me I would embrace the morning and get a whole lot more done.

TEAMWORK

ABOUT FACE

Out in the garden today I noticed how the sunflowers I love drop their heads and face the earth as they start to die. There is something wonderful about the back of their head the geometry of it is striking. So as I studied the backs of things today I decided to move forward with my blog. It's a good visual exercise and requires a certain discipline. Discipline doesn't come easily to me. Most of all, Looking for Light has helped me to see many things in a different light.

A GIFT

I am still amazed by the large clump of sunflowers growing in my yard thanks to the seeds serendipitously dropped by the birds who frequent my feeders. These unexpected beauties are a real gift since my gardening efforts were quite limited and really short-circuited by my knee problems. I like to think that the birds sent me a get well bouquet! The sunflowers are beginning to open. I love the geometry of their unfolding the green triangular tips of their leaves and the symmetry of their lovely yellow pointed petals. I love the mystery of it all, the way they got here, the way they open and then wondering what their faces will be! This unexpected gift from nature amazes me and I am so grateful. But sometimes I think this wasn't an accident at all.

A ROSE IS A ROSE

As the sun began to sink this evening my eyes scanned my yard for a photo. I was walking my Mom to her car and both of us noticed the way the light was hitting the fence near my driveway. The iris, day lilies and rose bush that bloom in front of the fence are survivors. Faithfully they bloom every year despite the fact that this is part of my yard is terribly neglected. It is a small spot that I just never seem to get to. Actually, I have always hated the scraggly rose bush that grows here. Countless times I have cut it down to nothing and yet it comes back. Tonight, the lone rose that blooms on the bush I have tried to eliminate from my garden is the dot of color that brings this picture to life. I almost feel as thought the rose bush was speaking to me.