Roses
When I think about roses, I think about my walks through the neighborhood. About the rolling plumage of gardens, the seasonal shifts, the rose bushes in full bloom. These peach ones are some of my favorites in the sea of gorgeousness.A year ago, we left our apartment of 7 years on the west side of Los Angeles to move to the suburbs, also known as "the west valley". I was 28+ weeks into a pregnancy after (two) losses, flooded with anxiety, and trying my best to still get out for twice-daily walks with the dog, despite the heat and hills of our new community.Earlier that summer, I jumped on the 100 days project when an intuitive hit pointed to flowers as a way to connect with the little girls inside me. One girl being my daughter. It seemed my intuition was showing me images of English rose gardens and scenes from The Secret Garden (a novel I've read twice now - once as a kid, once as an adult) as a way to calm my frazzled nerves. The other girl being the kid I once was, a little 3 year old obsessed with nature, squatting down to shove my face in a flower imitating my grandmother who taught me to "smell the flowers". Shooting and posting photos to #jt100daysoutdoors was a love letter to my daughter, and to myself.Now, a year later, I walk the same hills with 18lbs of baby strapped to my body in a carrier instead of that weight under my skin. I still walk slowly so I can narrate to A what we see. "That's a baby lizard" and "see this yellow flower? So pretty". She looks on patiently, sometimes reaching out her little hand to caress a leaf or tree. I'm not sure she's interested at all, but she doesn't seem to mind. I let my lips grace her hair.I'm so appreciative that now she can be a participant in one of my daily practices: the walking, noticing, grounding.That she can watch me observing nature, breathing in the clean air, looking out to the horizon, watching the birds, and stopping to smell the roses, especially the peach ones.Most importantly, I hope she can feel our connection, forgiving me all the anxieties I bring to our relationship, and know that this world is beautiful, I love her more than anything else in it.
For the month of August, I am posting each day using a prompt from The August Break challenge by Susannah Conway. The prompts encourage a “month of paying attention” which goes hand-in-hand with my new moon intention to focus on my creativity. I’m sharing all my photos on Instagram with #jtaugustbreak