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It’s the silken threads of care woven through the brutal storms of time that hold everything together. A loved one’s picture carried through a war and delivered to a grandchild thirty years later. The seed that isn’t washed away that takes root, arriving in the world as an orchid whose beauty makes a young girl become a painter. The memory of the moment we met twenty-five years ago overwhelming me as I watch you sleep this morning. The laughter of my father while planing a piece of mahogany, which kept me believing in the love of work and the work of love while going through cancer. These silken threads are everywhere—a web of barely visible connections that infuse us with resilience when we’re forced or loved to find our way through what we’re given.
I returned to Mercy by the Sea yesterday for the first time in two months. It was wonderful to work in the pollinator garden. I missed the daffodils blooming this spring, but I could see the pink petals of dianthus peeking through beneath the foliage. I was also thrilled to see that some milkweed was emerging next to the Rudbeckia. I added Shasta daisies and perennial sunflowers. Aside from the daffodils, most of these plants are dicots. Plants that flower can be classified as either monocots or dicots. The main distinction is the number of cotyledons present in the plant embryo. Cotyledons are the first part of the plant to emerge. Most bulbs are monocots.
That limitation can become for us a sanctuary is a deep and paradoxical concept. Most of us want to feel free, to be about what we desire without hindrance. What then of the limitation we are experiencing now as we try to control the spread of a deadly virus?
I have been doing a lot of gardening at Mercy by the Sea through these weeks. The courtyard garden is a large area that has not had attention for a while and invasives had pretty much taken over. All kinds of vines and growth created massive intertwined and enmeshed webs in and through and around just about every tree and bush.
