Jewelweed: Late Summer Blooms

Beginnings and endings are easy. It’s the middle that tests, and we are always in the middle of something.

I’m writing to you from the middle of the night. I’ve always been a light sleeper, and lighter still with creatures under my care. She shook her ears and whined, and when I shone my phone’s flashlight into her kennel, she whimpered. 

Outside the world was still, darkness thick like cake, as if you could cut a slice and put a bite into your mouth. The shadows were frosted in creamy moonlight, and as Penelope did her business in the dewy grass, I looked into the sky where a waning gibbous moon greeted me, a bright remnant of yesterday’s super moon.

Wow! Look, I said to Penelope, but she was more interested in chasing rabbits.

When I put her back to bed, the disturbance woke my husband. Come with me, I whispered, and he followed me downstairs to the back porch where we peered at the moon through binoculars, the jewel of Saturn shining to the south.

Afterward, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of Lake Champlain, its silvery ripples and thin shores craggy with driftwood. I felt the bodies of my family moving through meadow grass, birds calling along the treeline as the flowers undulated in the sunny wind. An osprey called from the crown of its nest. I pulled a vertebra of something wild from Pen’s throat, and picked up feathers dropped amongst the cedar needles. The dogs dove into walls of native plants, chasing speckled frogs. Pen’s snout was streaked green as we drove home, and it reminded me of the grass stains of my youth. We rolled down the windows, turned up the radio, all of us leaning into the moment, fleeting and perfect.

We arrived home to a quiet afternoon that cracked open into a rainstorm. Piled on top of one another, bellies full, all of us exhausted from our adventures, I thought nothing could feel more right, even if I am still waiting for something to shift outside my door.

Lately, I have had to say No, and it may be, perhaps, so that I can say a small but confident Yes. Following one’s instincts is not easy, but I feel the Universe patting me on the back, speaking to me with genuine affection, like how I praise Pen. Good girl! What a good job you’re doing!

When something feels right, you know it in your body. The same when it feels wrong. My head keeps getting in the way, waving her arms, shouting what ifs. So I turn my attention to the somatic experience. The next time you need to make a decision, say it aloud and tune into your body. Alignment is most easily discerned there.

All summer, I searched for jewelweed. My explorations revealed swatches of lace clipped from Queen Anne, pinwheels of daisies, wild lilies that could not decide what color to be. The hydrangea bloomed for the first time in years, its white petals passing through pink into lavender and settling as periwinkle, summer sky at dusk. In the parking lot of the grocery store I fingered a lion’s head sunflower. A begonia on my doorstep was layered like pastry, peels of delicate flesh in peach and yellow. I pressed its skin to my cheek, offered it to my dog to sniff but instead she put the entire blossom in her mouth. Irises stabbed the sky. I pinched purple petals off the thyme to encourage it to grow. Does life pinch us for the same reason?

Then one day, I found jewelweed. It grows in the shadowed wet, in patches at the end of my street where the pavement crumbles into a stretch of wood where no one minds the sign saying No Trespassing. I carried a bucket and shovel, dug up small plants to put in my yard. When jewelweed seeds the pods explode at the slightest disturbance, nicknaming them touch-me-nots. They are a cure for skin ills. Now when I walk the girls, I see these tiny trumpets everywhere, tangerine and close to the ground, bright yellow grazing my shoulders. Jewelweed is a late summer bloomer, like goldenrod, a dazzling marker of time.

In Vermont the leaves have already started to turn. Seasons, like travel, offer an opportunity to observe growth, change. Transitions are where the magic happens. So desperate for destinations we forget, sometimes willfully, to mind the process. Beginnings and endings are easy. It’s the middle that tests, and we are always in the middle of something.

I’ve spent most of this summer alone with my dogs. All the solitude has given me a chance to consider who I am, who I was, and who I was becoming. Maybe she’s alright after all.

When my dad’s birthday came and went without notice, I did not feel guilty. Two days later I thanked him for loving me, and I told him of my forgetfulness, Daddy, I am healing. As if he was responding, I opened my laptop to a newsletter titled Freedom from Trauma Bonds. That afternoon a cicada, at the end of its life, rested in my palm. I put her in the petunias to pass in peace before clipping her wings and burying her beneath the baby’s tears by my office window. 

I have successfully made sourdough, and created a sculptural flower collage. I’ve written the start to a novel and been accepted into a leadership program. I painted my foyer Wind City and a cute little side table Galapagos Teal. I made homemade lemon curd and layered it into a coconut cake. I have taken many, many naps, read books, soaked up the sun in the middle of my driveway. I’ve eaten a lot of ice cream, lemon popsicles, and tomatoes topped with basil. I put up a fence along the river and cleared a new section of my yard, ridding it of invasive species. I made lemon lavender biscotti. I walked 180 miles with my dogs.

I love when I can say that time has been spent well, that I have been happy in the spending.

I hope you’ve had a good summer, too.

Extras

What I’ve been baking…Sourdough! Also this cake and this biscotti.

What I’ve been watching…Shameless, true crime docs, Run Rabbit Run, The Rental.

What I’ve been reading…Alaskan Laundry, which is delightful.

What I’ve been researching…Sofas, canine reactivity, bead baking.