Sunday Letter: Neighbors
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I am learning Telugu. It looks like this: ఇరుగు-పొరుగువారు Listen Her mother is quiet, but has this glow about her when she talks about her children - don’t all mothers? She looks on, concerned that her daughter might be talking too much, while I smile and ask her daughter to slow down so I can listen to the sounds and say them back to her. This goes on for some time until I ask her to teach me one word a day so that we can become friends. This is my new community. Immersed in so many languages, cultures, and practices within a backdrop of mountains and trees. My new friend tells me she is afraid of nature. Dogs, cats, butterflies…even butterflies, I ask? Be well, Kathy |
Kathy Donchak
I write about nature, family, creativity, and wellbeing.
A garden is a space I have always carved out for myself, from the smallest balcony to the potted flowers by my door. Every one reflects the season of my life. An expression of self in a constantly changing landscape. Looking out into our small backyard, I look at the native serviceberry trees I bought from a local landscaper who saved them. Their form is delicate and rhythmic, standing in their small pots like a lanky teenager learning to balance and move with their fresh growth. This week I...
Source One must work with the creative powers - for not to work with is to work against; in art as in spiritual life there is no neutral place.” ~ Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures Our garden is taking shape. Inspired by one of my favorite gardening books by Rebcca Cole, I am dreaming and choosing plants to create a small garden of evergreens and deciduous trees, espalier fruit trees, and flowers. My husband is working through plans for raised vegetable and herb beds to feed the body while I work to...
And here I build my platform, and live upon it, and think my thoughts and am high. To rise, I must have a field to rise from. To deepen, I must have a bedrock from which to descend. ~ Mary Oliver, Long Life I can hear the birds again. The rainy mornings have been flooded with sounds of so many frogs, you are sure you left a window open, but today, thanks to the early morning urging of our cat at the window, I began to hear them again. The geese honking overhead, woodland songbirds, even an...