Peculiar little bugs, struck me like little alien faces until I got closer and saw they were bugs.  Fascinatingly intricate.

I was riding with my husband Ricki in his pirate truck, coming home from an early dinner. Before making the left hand turn onto our street, he slowed down to yield oncoming traffic, when the car behind him continued impatiently to come uncomfortably close, as if urging him to move. With a bit of aggravation, Ricki made a hand gesture out the window, turned left and drove us home. The bad news: the car followed us. The worse news: The guys in it were on a mission.

We stopped at the house, the car pulled along side to the left, window half way down. The driver, a young African American man, leaned over to share some threatening words, ending with something like “do you want me to blow your mf’ing head off?” at which time the passenger rolled the window down even further. Having remained calm, Ricki’s main gesture was to block me from their vision, almost leaning out of his window. His answer: “well, then I’m dead and you’re going to jail.” The tension and silence stretched the next moment into an indefinable time period. The two young men decided it obviously wasn’t worth it and took off, probably high-fiving each other on scaring the living crap out of us.

What surprised me most in this experience was my own reaction, or lack thereof. My awareness encompassed the following: This is not how I had expected to go, but I accepted. The love for my husband was overwhelming and I hoped for a fast conclusion. Tremendous gratitude for being together in this. I was surprised to feel compassion for the boys. I have received and lived so much already, nothing feels incomplete and I’m happy with my share. Now, these thoughts didn’t exactly come this linear and spelled out (OK, except for the “let it be quick if it’s happening now”), but rather flooded me as a knowingness. It’s actually not much different than how we live our daily lives: In awe of the daily gifts, together, grateful, ready for what life presents.

I value this experience as an enormous gift. And one those is definitely enough for now.

This one’s happy sitting in an inconspiciuous spot between rocks and mulch.

There are moments that I’m in complete awe of creations such as these. It’s all a dream…

Seeds from a friend’s garden started the two red columbines. Now in their second year, they are almost three feet tall and a couple of feet wide, a huge cluster of red and yellow blossoms. Think I’ll be spreading some more of those seeds.

The black columbine was added to our friends’ resting spot (a.k.a. the pet cemetery) last year and came back with a vengence this year, tons of black blossoms! Well, they’re actually closer to a dark purple, not quite what you see in this image.

Buddha’s chilling out by the “creek” that’s now making its way across, or rather through, the walkway. Fresh flowers in a tiny blue bottle, one of the many bottles that still keep emerging through the garden floor. The steep, once wooded lot was obviously at some point also used to dump their trash. Serenity reclaimed.

These purple clematis blossoms are a good 8″ across and absolutely stunning! Ricki cut old chainlink fence and attached strips of it as trellisses for the clematis plants. Seems that a few hours of direct light are definitely enough for these delicate beauties.