Hello dear reader,

When you read this, I will be on a train north or preparing to be so, to attend an herbal retreat in Maine and visit with dear friends. Two twelve-hour journeys there and back with spacious hours, removed from my every~days, to plumb the depths, dream and ponder. Hours to stare out of windows, see fresh-to-me every~days and sights, to look at my life from a distance and take stock…and to relax and enjoy the pleasures that come my way, of course.

This has felt like a threshold year for me...not in some grand, clear, decisive way, but in ways that come out of quiet noticing and thoughtful responding. It makes for interesting times with my creating for the world beyond my home and garden, I can tell you. All that I am deeply certain of is the beauty and wonder of becoming a grandmother…and wanting to spend more and more of days making do to mend the earth...and becoming ever more my own. My threshold is wide and comfortable, and I am sitting upon it, looking out and looking within, here for as long as I need and want to.


As I write this, we are on another threshold, as spring takes hands with summer. Tho' here in Virginia, we've been enjoying the warmth and beauty of early summer for many weeks now. I don't know if it makes seasonal sense to anyone other than me, but I find myself wanting to simplify at this time of year more than any other...to make space and peace, I suppose, for summertime restfulness and refreshment to enter in?


When I asked my Wisteria & Sunshine women what sort of posts they would most like me to leave them while I am away, simplicity was the common thread. So I've just finished creating a summer retreat there that begins tomorrow...pretty, daily posts with thoughts and resources for creating more simplicity in our homes and days. I can see a "summer simplicity" series following on these posts, when I return. Of all of the seasons, doesn't summertime feel the one that needs the most care to be more of what we would wish it to be?


A few weeks ago, when our Santa Fe family was visiting, we had a joyful gathering of four generations of our family here. August was three and a half months, my sweet father-in-law ninety-one. Precious, precious. I am struggling for further words, but if I could find them, they would say something about life, as I accumulate the years, being ever more heart-aching, in good ways. And that beyond the simplifying of my home and my hours, I am longing to distill everything to its essence...to better receive all of the beauty and wonder. Do you know what I mean?

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