Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

Summer sliding dumbly toward a muted fall, With faded greens, a yellow here and there and me, Heartsick for no apparent reason, stuck like gum to a sidewalk square. No place to go and no way out except by public transportation. Scraping up my soul I head for home, imagination searching for the way it might have been

As you know, well-mannered sunflowers follow the sun. In Tuscany, for example, field after field of flowers track the sun in happy synchronicity. Gardener after New York Gardener has tried (in obvious vane) to order New York patches into proper, harmonious herds. Jaunty and free, our New York sunflowers catch the light wherever they may.

Harlem Meer in the Last Rays of Summer 2011

This lovely sweetheart is mostly a ribbon grass plant but I'd swear there's a little cactus in the family. It's hard to get close to Ribbon, but inside the pointy exterior she has a very soft heart. Well! My Horticultural Specialist has clarified the heritage of Ribbon. She is a succulent of the Aloe family. Just as we thought, she has a soft and healing heart. Conservancy Garden, September 2011

So many times I heard those cautionary words, Don’t wait.  Don’t wake up at 50! Hurry!  Wait, were those not Roses? Haste makes waste! Write it down!  Fifty times! Each day! Every Day! Each hour!  Rich? Famous? Singer? Sculptor? Actor! Each second, waking and sleeping, Write it down, write it Down! Dow!n, do!wn d!own, D ~O ~W ~N ~! 50 Came.  Then 50 Went,  And with a small alteration of the pen,  50 came Again! I did find out a thing or two, amid those endless 50s, About the makeup of a made-up Dream. The Dreamer may become the dream, but it Starts the other way around.   I sit among my 50s shredding journals. Life was interesting enough at the time. “What now?”  I ask, and just for fun, “Where now?” “Here,” Now answers. “Waiting for my due.”   A Moment of Reflections

Beautiful young girl caught scurrying past this Horrifying Fall Collection Madison Avenue, New York -Fall 2011

East 90th Street near 5th Avenue, sunset 2011 I love a graceful, bendy silhouette against a New York streetscape.  This warrior tree has weathered many a blizzard and hurricane wind protecting its townhouse ward. Shoppers, dogs, walkers, children, play in its streets and sidewalks.  See the golden window in the upper left?  Last summer Warrior made the shade for the stoop where two accidental neighbors met and fell in love.