Observations

The day is hot, almost suffocatingly so, but the tea is still warmer. Unsweetened, it sits beside me on the uneven wooden table in a white china cup, decorated with flowers, that once belonged to my grandmother, or possibly my great-aunt, although the latter preferred violets and this cup is decorated with sprays of faded pink roses. But never mind, by this time in my life, it quite possibly has passed to my lips, tipping hot amber liquid into my mouth at four o’clock, more often than it did to theirs.

On the terrace in this first flush of summer heat my other companions are plants; a row of just-emerging Ipomoea seedlings, craning their strange cloven seed-leaves toward the light; an assortment of pansies in mismatched colors (I bought them reluctantly for the purple ones which made up the majority of the flat but for some obscure reason – a color-blind nurseryman, perhaps – there were within the flat a harsh ruffled yellow and a dark maroon, and once I got them home I couldn’t manage to kill them, so they are here, clashing with everything and thriving, annoyingly, throwing more blooms than any of the others); some English ivy; a green-and-white coleus of the same approximate Victorian vintage as the china cup. The morning glories strain forward vigorously on thick brownish stems, eager to discover life; the ruffled pansies are in every stage from tight buds of as-yet indistinct color to heavy-headed, tattered decline.

I glimpse the outer world through holes – the diamond-shaped spaces in the trellis, the irregular light-filled spaces between leaves. The door clicks open, a neighbor departs; I can see her blue-patterned blouse but I am invisible. A blur of cars passes through the leaves; the passers-by; the bearded man; the young girl with the large dog. The heavy clink of a bicycle lock against the handlebars betrays another neighbor, returning home.

I pour another cup of tea.

On the inside, here where I lie on a bench propped up by a couch pillow so I can read while reclining horizontally, the ground is covered with fallen petals, off-white, and the thick air stirred by an occasional breeze. A black ant, sure of its destination, crawls busily along the railing, under the arch of a branch, around the obstacle of a finial. A mosquito sails toward me on a gust of wind, out of control; deflected by waved fingers he disappears. Above us, the pale new leaves of a locust, arranged in whorls like airborne maidenhair ferns, sway weightlessly.

My attention shifts from the book with its dark satin ribbon to the cup to the fallen petals, the offending pansies, a red car, a pale girl sucking a lollipop, the tree-leaves and the spaces between the tree-leaves, the sudden scent of a cigar, the cawing of a crow hidden in a nearby treetop. Bicycles glide past; the crow flies, trailing her feet; a bee inspects the last of the blooms.

Where am I, then, if not in the treetops or crawling along the branches, thrusting my new life out of the soil or shedding my petals back into it? I am heavily here on the bench and drifting like the dandelion pods on the wind; I inhabit the empty sandals on the terrace and evaporate like the last drops of tea in the cup.

Comments

[Dave]

Beautiful. I'm there!

[dale]

This made me eyes fill with tears. Not even sure why.

[Rana]

Oh, I so want to sit on a bench in a garden, sipping tea in the green shade.

This is the next best thing.

Thanks!

[Coup de Vent]

Great. I feel so still listening to this. And it has reminded me to make myself some fresh mint tea today! Thanks, Beth. Have a lovely day / some good moments.

[Julia]

A beautiful reminder to be in the moment...
Thank you

[peter]

I suspect you would scorn the implicit flattery about to follow but I nevertheless draw to your attention the passage at

http://blogthoreau.blogspot.com/ for June 11 and I can't help but observe that for this week, at least, you have written circles around the old gent. Best ...

[Peter (another one)]

This is beautiful. Thank you.

[beth]

You're right, I'm good at deflecting compliments, and it's not an admirable trait. So this time I will just say "thank you", and mean it very sincerely. Thank you.

[Abdul-Walid]

A disciple of slowness then.

Lovely.

[susurra]

This culminated with such a beautiful note. I wonder, did you write the last bit first and then paint the picture behind it for us to appreciate it that much more?