Beautiful November…

November is a beautiful month in the high desert.

Citrus starts to ripen, flowers come back to life and the air has a coolness you long for all summer.

October is still very warm, but November changes everything.

The feeling of giving thanks is everywhere.

It’s been a year of growing flowers and finding a balance.

Tending two gardens and going back and forth has become wonderful.

I love it.

It’s a great gift for sure, and I am very grateful to get to have two gardens to love.

The villa garden is gifting so many roses right now.

(the country house garden is ridiculously floriferous right now too)

All the transplants worked, and I run outside the second I open my eyes to see what is going on out there.

It does feel like the heart of my homes are in the gardens, in many ways.

But I think in fairness, the heart is the kitchen.

I spend the hugest amount of time in this kitchen.

I congregate with friends and loved ones here.

I feed dogs here.

I’m always cooking and baking up something that gets gobbled faster than I can get it on the plate.

In fact, I have a little desk nook in the kitchen that I am typing this from at this very moment.

To bring flowers and fruits from the garden into the home fills my heart with a kind of joy that I can actually feel fluttering in there.

It breaths life into the home for me.

Especially because part of my soul is made up of warm garden soil.

I do not know why I have been enchanted by petals.

By the act of growing them.

I have spent 24 years (daily) working in the garden.

I think it is what grounds me.

Make me feel like myself.

Makes me feel at peace.

Fills my heart.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is plant.

It’s a need and longing I have inside of me.

So I do it avidly.

When I discovered the villa one year ago, there were huge citrus trees in a small grove.

They looked like big ogers, with arms touching the ground.

They had not been nurtured to canopy, but instead to arch down like spiders in a tangled mess.

The leaves seemed a bit sad and not as glossy and beautiful as they could have been.

I crawled in there and sawed and trimmed and cut and clipped.

Endless dead branches deep under these monster trees.

Days and days.

I bled from the huge thorns scratching my shoulders and arms and hands and forehead.

I worked feverishly.

And now, one year later, they are vibrant again.

With huge glossy green leaves and more fruit than I can keep up with (almost).

And so I fill this heart.

This kitchen.

This center of my home, with all I collect outside today.

And I am grateful to the gifts from the garden.

Sweetest pink grapefruit makes you feel so good any time of the day.

Coral and sherbet and magenta petals fill my tin.

And a few little mums that grow everywhere as volunteers.

I have found the flow of my norm.

And I am here to tell you that, change is hard.

Even good change is hard.

But it is also so good.

None of us want change, but some of us need it and don’t even realize it.

As they say, it is the change that keeps you being yourself.

Hard to believe, but true.

You can sit in your house day after day and say, why have I lost my mojo?

Why am I so unhappy?

Why have I lost myself?

Why does nothing feel right in my cozy nook?

And you can sit and sit and wait and wait to feel like yourself again.

Hoping for the day to come.

Don’t wait but instead live.

Venture out, smell the air.

Do something, even the smallest thing, differently.

And slowly but surely, you will feel your muse again.

I feel like, the older we get, the less we are in tune with what exactly we need.

As kids we say, I hate this.

I don’t like this.

We kick and scream and make the changes we need.

We purge our feelings openly and without bounds.

But as adults we don’t afford ourselves the same luxury.

We accept, we become complacent with our unhappiness.

We wait.

And wait.

We wait for something to change.

A kid would never do that.

A kid would kick and cry and scream and say, I want to go playyyyyy!

I want to go out for ice cream.

It’s like, as kids we know what we need.

Like we are more in tune without even knowing.

And as adults, we lose sight of it, or don’t even ask ourselves what we need.

We lock ourselves up and wait, which is likely not what we need at all.

We say, I just don’t know what is wrong with me.

When really what we need is so simple.

Sometimes the weight can feel sooooo big.

Little happy things can slowly start the cure.

I found that no matter how anxious or weird I feel, if I meet a friend for dinner and chats I feel amazing after.

If I go to the plant nursery and get a frozen yogurt, I feel better.

If I go for a drive and blare my music I feel fab!

If I talk to people at the grocery store, just happy small meaningless chats, I feel so happy.

Be a child, and give yourself what you need.

Ask yourself, what do I need?

Not the big picture of what you need, but right now, in this moment.

What do you feel like you need?

A coffee, a good book?

To sit in the sun and close your eyes?

To go stroll around an antique store?

To start a project you have ready to begin starring at you right now?!

To cry your eyeballs out and purge some of those toxins?

Do it with urgency.

Go out for ice cream with urgency.

Go for a drive with your fave music on with urgency.

I promise, it will help.

The cure for so much is so simple but we drown in a glass of water.

Let’s do it.

Let’s enjoy all the little cures.

I guess my point is, my cure is my garden.

Well, it’s part of my cure.

The creativity of cooking is another cure, and feeding people I love.

I heard that, there is no other act of love so pure as cooking for people.

Which I love to do.

Painting, antiquing, typing here right now.

All make up bits of my cure.

Music, so much music.

Walks and talks and good food.

Playing the piano, creating a mood board.

We think we have to come up with monumental happenings to makes changes.

If only we realized, the changes that will bring us back to joy are so very small…

It’s the little things – isn’t it?

Always.

What are your little cures?

Your small joys?

 

Lots of love!

 

xoxo