Tag Archives: Memories

Summer Baby

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“To love another person is to see the face of God.” -Victor Hugo

My boys. My world.

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I don’t want to let go of summer. Nature is working against me though and already fall is willfully inching in around us. It’s a perfectly crisp 70 degrees out right now and I’m sitting here sipping my first pumpkin latte of the season. The Pats are playing tonight and there is very little that makes me as happy as the beginning of football season. Today when I went walking around the block, I noticed the first leaves beginning to change and glide to the ground. Normally I’m excited about all these fallish things—it’s my favorite time of year and I’m usually ready by now for riding boots and cider donuts.

But not this year. This year I want to hold on forever to the green, sunshiny season when my baby was born and I was reborn as a mother. Already six weeks have passed since he came into our lives and I’m afraid he’ll be all grown up by the time the last leaves fly and this summer—this most transformational of summers—will be done, gone, and forgotten in a blink.

So I’m holding on. Holding on to my summer baby and the sunshiny season when he was born.

This week I started taking him for walks around the block in his stroller. I’ve mostly been holed up in the house since he was born because it still feels like a bit of an ordeal trying to leave the house with a newborn. But you can only stay inside drinking espresso and watching Netflix for so long before you start to go a little cray cray. So we walk and explore and breathe in all that wonderful fresh air…and we don’t go crazy…it’s a win win.

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We stop all along the way and snap pictures of whatever pretty summer things we can find.

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Wild flowers

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And herbs going to seed

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And colorful bushes and leaves

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It rained last night and today the air was filled with the fresh, clean smell of wet pine needles. Big billowy whipped cream clouds went floating along and the sky was that perfect cobalt blue that follows after the rain. These are the days I want to remember. These summer days when my baby is tiny and happiest curled up tight in my arms. These days when I’m a brand new mommy and me and this baby are seeing the world together for the first time—he truly has never seen it before and I somehow see it all so differently now that he’s here.

These are the days, the perfect summer days that I want to remember forever.

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 A fresh little bud in my garden, With petals close folded from view,

Brightly nods me a cheery “Good morning” Through the drops of a fresh bath of dew.

I must patiently wait its unfolding, Tho’ I long its full beauty to see;

Leave soft breeze and warm, tender sunshine To perform the sweet office for me.

I may shield my fair baby blossom; With trellis its weakness uphold;

With nourishment wisely sustain it, And cherish its pure heart of gold.

Then in good time, which is God’s time, Developed by sunshine and shower,

Some morning I’ll find in the garden Where my bud was, a beautiful flower.

–The poem, Mother’s Garden  

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Johnny Appleseed

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DSC_0488One of my favorite things about the farm I grew up on was a giant Red Delicious apple tree sitting in the middle of the orchard. My dad planted lots of fruit trees when we moved to the farm but that particular tree was there long before that and all the others were simply added around it.

That tree was kind of my spot, the place where I would go when I wanted to think, pray, or be alone. I would climb up and sit in its scruffy branches or pace around beneath it when I couldn’t hold still.

DSC_0496I remember picking hundreds of apples off it one year when the snow had already come and my dad was trying to save the fruit before it was ruined and gone. I remember my dad climbing around on the branches like a monkey and dropping the apples into my nine or ten year old hands one by one. He gave me a dollar at the end of the day for helping him in the cold and we had more apples than we could ever use that year. I wonder if he remembers that day as well as I do.

My parents put a park bench under that tree and I remember sitting there talking with Darren when we were dating. It’s a sweet memory sitting there under the shade of the trees getting to know the man I would spend my life with.

DSC_0497That tree is gone now along with the rest of the orchard and the house I grew up in. It will always be one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t take any pictures of it before I left home but of course I didn’t know then that I would never see that place again. You never do know how life will work out.

My dad did something very special for me recently; he bought me two baby apple trees and promised to help me plant them at our new house when he comes to visit this summer. Darren and I picked the trees out one night in the rain and came home with a Red Delicious and a Mcintosh that now sit on our front porch waiting for my dad to plant them. The Red Delicious is going crazy with glossy leaves and lots of delicate pink buds.

DSC_0476I slipped outside today with my camera and took pictures of the papery pink buds blossoming in the sunshine. I won’t have any regrets about documenting this very special tree.

I wasn’t able to plant a garden this year, what with moving and a baby on the way. But the cheerful buds on my apple tree brighten my day and gives me something from nature to enjoy until I have flowers and garden next year.

DSC_0478Trees and blossoms will always be some of my favorite things. Just call me Johnny Appleseed :]

Equinox

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Look at me writing a post two days in a row…who knew I had it in me ;]

It’s spring today everybody! Not that the weather agrees here in New England but I’ll take the end of winter either way. I decided to celebrate by wearing a springy little sundress…and am compensating for the cold with a cardigan, long socks, and riding boots so I don’t freeze to death. I can at least pretend spring is here even if freezing in a sundress is a poor way to do it.

I wore this dress in Italy when we explored Naples, the Amalfi Coast, and Pompeii by foot and train. That was a magical day in a magical country and this bright little dress always reminds me of those sweet, warm memories.

Today, on the first day of spring, I’m dreaming of the Italian sun, of lemon groves and street vendors selling bright flowers, and of taking a long walk in the sunshine…either here or there, anywhere so long as I’m warm :]

catKatniss is helping me celebrate…all snuggled up in my lap while I write this post.

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Walking the streets of Pompeii in my little sundress

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Flowers for sale on the streets in France

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A sunshiny day on the Adriactic

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Birds sunbathing in Croatia

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Poppies growing up out of the rocks in France; I think they love they sun as much as I do.

Happy spring, everyone :]

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Memories of Mexico

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I spent a couple different weeks in Mexico when I was a teenager. I was going through a box of photos the other day and came across some of the pictures taken while I was there. Back then I took all my pictures with one of those disposable cameras with film. I was crazy about cameras and pictures and I remember driving my mom crazy when I had film to develop. I would ask her every day if I could take it to the store to develop and then I would ask her every.single.day. if the pictures were ready to pick up. She’s a profoundly patient woman :]

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These first two pictures were taken when I was 16. Though the quality is not very good, these photos bring back a world of memories. Everything from how sweet these kids were—always on our heels wanting to play and have their picture taken, to the way the air smelled up in the humid mountains of Mexico. I remember the meal a group of women made over an open fire in a kitchen with a dirt floor…I was afraid to eat it at first but it tasted so fresh and good. I remember sleeping on a cot on the ground and being woken up by a very loud rooster every morning.

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The rest of these pictures were taken in a different part of Mexico when I was 18. Again, the kids were the best part of the trip. Darren pointed out to me that all these kids would be in their late teens or early twenties by now, older than I was when I took these…amazing.

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Exploring the streets with my best friend :]

I’m so glad we have photos to capture the present and take us back to the past. I had all but forgotten about these trips and now they are alive in my heart again.