The first marigold, blooming at last.
Here's one of a number of pumpkin seedling volunteers that I found outside the garden, where I'd dumped a bunch of composty stuff. I transplanted them into the garden for safekeeping:
It's a bit late in the season, but we'll see how this goes. These were little sugar pie pumpkins, and it would be nice to have some more this fall.
Here's the grapevine I transplanted the other day, seeming to do pretty well for a transplant:
My husband's sister had given him this vine (and a gooseberry which is also growing in the enclosed garden) for his birthday a year ago in January. We'd had it in a very neglected and messy raised bed along the driveway, which I think now we're going to dismantle and turn back into lawn for the time being. I'd like to plant a winterberry holly there in the fall, actually, for some winter color and bird food supply. At any rate, that bed never really worked as a vegetable garden, and now that the grapevine is out of it, there's nothing there that I'm anxious to preserve.
More views of flowers and various containers:
The bees are continually busy in the garden, and this morning after our walk I was buzzed by a hummingbird. It visited various flowers --- the blue sage especially, but also the just-blooming bee balm --- then hung in the air studying me for a minute before zooming off.
I've moved my three potted blueberries to the side of the garden where eventually I'll plant them in the ground:
I'll probably plant two of these inside the fence, then begin a row of them on the outside.
A shorter walk with Dora today, because I have a lot of work to do. Among other things, I'm speed-reading and writing an endorsement of a book of essays on poetry, by my friend Andrew Frisardi --- marveling as I always do at what a lucid and humane writer he is, and what a careful close reader. His forthcoming book, Ancient Salt, to be published by Wipf and Stock, discusses the work of such diverse poets as Edwin Muir, Kathleen Raine, William Butler Yeats, and David Mason, examining each poet's creative response to the chaos and disorder of modernity.
I've also tentatively drafted a few more hermit poems and begun revisiting an old fiction project.
Wearing today: some items I have not worn in literal months. I had reached for a bamboo swing dress --- again --- and then thought, wait a minute. I do have all this stuff hanging in my closet that I've been overlooking in favor of the same tiny handful of things. Does this mean I need to go minimalist? Or does it just mean I'm in a rut?
I think it probably means the latter, but the only way to tell is to pull out of the rut and see how I feel there.
I've been eschewing tops-and-bottoms outfits for a while now, because wearing one core piece is so much easier. But honestly, I have skirts and tops, and I don't dislike wearing them. It's not even that hard to put together a separates outfit.
So today I made that tiny effort. I have these merino tees, and I want to wear them. I have this sage-green twill skirt, and I like it a lot. It's heavier and less flowy than a lot of my favorite clothes, but it's comfortable and easy to move in (though too long for hiking, in my view). And the fit-and-flare shape it creates is flattering. I paired the skirt today with my thrifted Icebreaker merino tee in this pink micro-stripe, which I love. On a brisk walk in the humid heat, I stayed perfectly cool and comfortable. This was a good excuse to wear my favorite braided belt, plus my dependable EVA Birks. I like that I'm not repeating any color anywhere in my outfit, and that I have a nice contrast going between my hem color and my shoe color --- yet everything harmonizes. Every color in this outfit goes well with every other color. All items secondhand except my shoes, which I've had for about four years.
This pink is about the outer edge of brightness for me --- really the texture of the micro-stripe pattern, which mutes it a little, is what makes it feel good. But it does pick up my skin tone pretty well without overwhelming me, even in the usual ambivalent selfie situation:
It is interesting to test this personal-color theory day after day via a photographic diary. For so many, many years I just had no clue about my own appearance or what might possibly look good on me. It was just this hit or miss kind of thing, like driving with my eyes closed and just hoping to arrive somewhere without damage or disaster. Taking these pictures starts to seem so navel-gazy, and yet --- it is telling me what I look like, all the time. It does give me a chance to consider what's going on in my appearance, in a way that just glancing in the mirror does not. The mirror doesn't let you step away from yourself in the same way; the mirror gives you to yourself as a self, but it doesn't really let you examine yourself as an image. Photographs are useful in that whatever is in them, even if it's you, actually is an image, separate from you and more available to be analyzed. You don't take yourself by surprise in the mirror. But seeing a photograph of yourself often is a surprise. Sometimes, if somebody has caught you at the wrong angle in the wrong instant, it's a really upsetting surprise. But if the photographer (who might or might not be you) is looking for you at your best, then (even if the photographer is you) you are often surprised by that attractive person. That pretty person. That person with the eyes and skin and features and hair and whatever --- that you didn't know you had, not in precisely that way, until the image presented itself to you as a separate thing. I don't love every picture I take of myself. I often post pictures I don't love. But in every picture I'm able to see something good, in a way that I wouldn't if I were just looking at myself in the mirror. AND I'm able to see when things don't quite work, which I also don't reliably see in the mirror.
Anyway, knowledge is power, as they say. At the very least, in this kind of situation, knowledge is authority: you exercising authority over your self-presentation in a way that makes you feel confident and good and authentic.
Now that I feel confident and good and authentic, I'm going to continue reading some essays and thinking of something to say about them.