This, and my heart.

bees, my garden, poetry, , , , , , ,

Western Honeybee and Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

This afternoon the sun came out, but my house was cold, so I took my lunch into the garden and sat in the sunshine, on the edge of the planter box. A few inches away several plants were draping their heavy, flowery stems over the brick area between my seat and the fig tree: Milkweed, salvia, borage, oregano, and lavender were all tucked in close together. The bees were loving it. Carpenter bees, honeybees, some little bees I didn’t recognize. It’s very sweet to be able to take a few steps out my back door and find myself in a world where a thousand tiny creatures are flying about and feasting.

My hands were occupied, I couldn’t take pictures of them, and that was nice for a change. I did take pictures on other days so I am sharing those here. The two just above are from the front garden, where the pincushion flowers are a bit hit. Leafcutter is new to me. While she was buzzing around and I first caught glimpses of all that yellow, I thought maybe it was pollen. But no, it’s not on her legs, it’s her own body that’s so bright. [But YES, shoreacres explains in a comment below, while it’s not on her legs, it is indeed pollen!]

Yes, the pollinators love all these flowers, too: the white echinacea, germander, and salvia clevelandii. I took the picture above just after I propped up the pincushion flowers that grew to 6 feet, looking for the sun. I hadn’t realized that that area is now Part Shade, because of the crape myrtle. I’ll have to move the pincushions in the fall; it’s quite a jumble in there with the flowers in back shorter than the ones in front. I’m in no hurry to do it as long as the bees are so happy.

My first draft of this post was just the poem and painting below,
but then my own bees got added to Emily’s.
It’s all we have.

IT’S ALL I HAVE TO BRING TODAY

It’s all I have to bring today —
This, and my heart beside —
This, and my heart, and all the fields —
And all the meadows wide —
Be sure you count — should I forget
Some one the sum could tell —
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

-Emily Dickinson

Claude Monet, The Summer Poppy Field

What I drank in Paris.

food and cooking, travel, , ,

I thought it would be fun to join Deb at Readerbuzz and others for “Paris in July,” hosted by Emma of Words and Peace. “The aim of the month is to celebrate our French experiences through reading, watching, listening, observing, cooking, and eating all things French.”

My entire experience of Paris happened unexpectedly in high school, after I had spent a summer in Turkey as an exchange student. Our return to the States was going to be by ship, as had been our trip out, across the Atlantic; this final crossing would be westward, from Rotterdam to New York. But when we left our host families’ homes scattered all over Turkey and gathered in Istanbul, we learned that plans had changed. We were going to fly home instead, by way of Paris, where we would lay over five nights at a school that was unoccupied during the summer.

No one would be supervising us! But we would be provided with beds and breakfast. I don’t remember other meals being served, and I have no memory either of what else I ate for five days; no croissants, I’m certain of that — only those simple foods we were served in the mornings, at long tables in the dining hall: café au lait and plain bread. Was there butter for the bread? Possibly, but it wouldn’t have been necessary. I thought the naked slices of baguettes perfect, and made a special place of reverence in my mind for wide bowls of café au lait, the most elegant breakfast imaginable – five whole mornings of it, très, très bon. 

It has been impossible to find online a picture that comes close to resembling the manner in which this drink was served to us. The bowl was larger and wider than most pictures I can find, but Coffee Geek, in the course of telling us how to make a modern version of the drink, explains how the current bowl style does come in different sizes. I imagine the ones used in that Paris school were an institutional white. As to size, these that Wayfair suggests for the French breakfast look about right to me. If you add a cup of coffee to a cup of milk, your bowl needs to hold at least 16 oz.

French was at the time my favorite subject in school, and when I went off to college, I started out as a French major. In both settings our lessons involved memorized conversations on topics taken from the life of a typical student in France, and here I was in a French school building, having a small bit of like experience; I had learned back in French class about the beverage so I didn’t find it odd.

I enjoyed the forced visit to France and being able to use some of my language skills, which were much stronger than what I’d recently learned of Turkish. We had no guides, no adult even suggesting what we should do or see. My friends and I wandered around and rode the Metro, but the Louvre was closed for some reason; I bought postcards at a bookstall in Montmartre.

What a strange experience it all seems from this vantage point. If we had been given a chance to prepare, what might we have done with five days in Paris? Maybe nothing that different. I’ve never returned to Paris, but I always remember fondly that brief encounter, and drinking  café au lait in its native land.

Looking at the Grand Lady.

art, history, , ,

I enjoyed this collection of comic book covers over the years, those featuring the Statue of Liberty: America at 250: The Statue of Liberty in 13 Covers. Here’s one of the earliest, from 1941:

And here is my favorite:

This is the first time I’ve ever really looked at comic book art as something more than the background to the text. It helps that someone put all these examples in one place as a mini-museum for me to peruse. Maybe you will like to click through and see all 13 yourself.

The promise remains urgent.

church, current events, history, holidays, quotes, , , ,

I don’t think anyone has ever asked me a question of the sort, “What does it mean to you to be an American?” But last year in Athens I asked my taxi driver, “What makes you proud of your country?” and quickly realized that as my goal had been to start a conversation, he was the perfect person to ask. He answered, “The philosophers!”, and went on to talk at length, with some encouragement by more questions, about Plato, Aristotle, the ancient church fathers, the London School of Economics, the dire situation in the EU… Basically, it was all downhill from Plato. Greece is not what it was.

The United States of America is not what it was 50, 100 or 250 years ago. I am just one citizen, in our diverse culture  — or anti-culture. It’s hard for me to think of my country in the abstract, as an idea, especially if that is to be deduced from the behavior of the total population. There have been many individuals who asked God for His help and tried to live virtuous lives, who also called themselves Americans. I would like to be that sort of citizen, so maybe my answer to the meaning question would be, “It means that I pray with the Church, ‘For our country, the president, all those in civil authority, and for the armed forces: Lord, have mercy.'”

Founding Fathers, National Archive

I was glad to see that some Orthodox Church leaders have given us a word on the occasion of this 250th anniversary of our nation:

Two hundred and fifty years is a span of time sufficient to accumulate both great achievements and grave failures. This nation—like all nations under God—has known the heights of generosity and the depths of injustice; the nobility of aspiration and the tragedy of betrayal. The Church does not pretend otherwise, nor would it serve this nation’s good for her to do so.

We bear witness to a God before Whom no nation and no person stands without need of mercy. The promise spoken to Solomon rings out across the centuries with undiminished urgency: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (1 Chronicles 7:14)

It is in this spirit that we call the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America—and, through their witness, this nation—to repentance: repentance for injustices past and present; for the idols of wealth, comfort, and power that seduce every generation; for the divisions and enmities that tear at the fabric of common life; and for the ways in which we have failed to love our neighbors as ourselves.

A true commemoration of a nation’s founding is not mere self-congratulation; it is a moment of sober examination, of honest confession, and of renewed dependence upon God. The Church does not speak this word from a posture of superiority. We acknowledge our own failures—in charity, in unity, and in the fullness of our witness to the Gospel. We, too, stand in need of God’s mercy. But it is precisely because the Church has known the healing power of repentance that she cannot withhold this word from the world she is called to serve.

—Excerpt from the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America