For the Love of Dirt: In Search of my Mother's Garden......

"In search of my mother's garden,
I found my own." - Alice Walker

The porch in summer.....my place to be, either with friends or family. The old Royal Crown Derby China gets put thru its paces. The china connects me to my grandmother and mother, even though as of late I have been enhancing the Mikado with replacements pieces.My mother would be pleased. I think it's good to use the old china. An antique teapot bubbling with sweet peas......

With shortbread and Christmas cake, sliced thinly. My mother would have buttered it, and added a slice of sharp cheddar. Sometimes, when I remember, I do that as well.And Earl Grey tea. Hot. Or homemade Ice Tea......
"The arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four."
~C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, 1955

The neighbourhood cats out in full force. Patience and his house mate, Cordelia, staring from the fence above. Even roses are quiet in the heat of the day. The teapot clinks against antique china cups, and tea begins to collect like a waterfall into a rock pool.

Even the Spencer and Smokey are full of the heat. They flop and droop.They dream of chasing garter snakes and dragonflies.

“Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.”
― Clare Ansberry, The Women of Troy Hill: The Back-Fence Virtues of Faith and Friendship

When I was growing up we didn't have a porch. My mother would take a small table and tuck it into a corner by the old trees. She'd serve ice tea, spiked with gingerale, and hot tea with a plate of goodies, and watermelon. The non-seedless variety. My friends and I would see how far we could spit the seeds, as long as my mother wasn't watching....

Fiona, Kathy, Michelle, Lauren (back) Jean, Brenda ( front) 1977 Victoria Day

" LET us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening , the fountains are bubbling with delight, LET us dream , and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things." – Okakura Kakuzo

Today the Bees by the porch are noisy. They sing of summer . They buzz around begonias and roses.Their song sounds a little staggered, as if the pollen is too much for them. The porch I sit on now has wicker furniture with big soft cushions. Spencer likes to curl up on the wicker couch.

My mother and I lived a pretty simple life, after my dad died, when I was seven. She would surround the back steps with flower boxes of geraniums. The dirt patch beside the steps always displayed nasturtums, grown from seed, and beside that a towering wall of sweet peas. It was my job to pick them. I had to stand on a chair to reach.

" Always think about creating. The future starts when you wake up every morning... Every day find something creative to do with your life." - Miles Davis

Sometimes, in the summer and fall, my mother and I would sit on the back steps, which were quite wide, and covered. I loved it there. It was not fancy. It was just our quiet place. After dinner, she'd sit with a cup of tea and not speak. She'd wear a long caftan to dinner and balance the tea cup in her hands.

I would listen to the trees rustle overhead. I don't think I actually appreciated those days, those meals, those hot cups of tea on the porch, till much later. She would be silent. That's all I knew. Even when I went away to college in California, that last night together, she never said what she was really thinking. We just sat there in the twilight.

Years later, and many houses later, I sit on our little porch, at this house on the hill, surrounded by flowers and bees, cats, trees, soft wind, the scent of sweet peas mulling about in their pots. And finally I understand .