MD

I take a lot of pictures, many of them of my flowers. This one is of the tiniest blooms I have ever seen. Even though they are in a pot of sedum, they're the blossoms of small volunteer plant which looks very much like a shamrock - a teeny-tiny shamrock.

I take a lot of pictures. This month already, with three days yet to go, I have more than 450 in the August file and that doesn't count all I've taken and deleted.
This photo of two spent Cardinal Climber blooms made me think of earrings. But a recent realization is of how beautifully intricate the CC leaves are.

The statue and flower pots in this corner are being overtaken by the Cardinal Climber. Their hidden aspect makes me think "the secret garden". And then I'm reminded of the book - and movie. Do Zachary, Katrina and Alyssa remember when I took them to see the 1993 film? Or were they too young to remember?

I find myself taking more and more photos of clouds. This one, yesterday, of a swelling thunderhead above the swaying top of a cottonwood tree.

From the time I first had a camera of my own, I've tried to take artistic photos - like these scanned and made into a triptych.

Or this one, which, if you knew the name for the clematis and could read the rusty sign, you'd be able to extrapolate "Majestic Ramona". Which may seem more than a bit pretentious.....

.....until you remember that my blog is meant to be a reflection of my life for my family and friends.

Love After Love
   (By Derek Walcott 

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

If you are curious about the title of this post, MD is 1500 in Roman Numerals. And 1500 days is how old I was 39 days after this birthday picture of me was taken in 1947.

And this is the 1500th blog post of Chances R.