The Season's First Sunday at Chanticleer

Yesterday I hunkered down with client work until I could no longer and set off (this time in a car) for my favorite garden anywhere—Chanticleer. I'd received a season's pass as a birthday present from the gardeners themselves, and when I arrived I was floated at once up and out of myself. I had my Sony and two lenses and a borrowed video camera. I had my wild hair tangled up with the breeze. There were bursts of families and lovers on every hill, bright as balloons let free of their strings. There were those in tiger-colored chairs, reading alone and satisfied.

I am grateful for the many families I have accumulated in this life. The gardeners of Chanticleer have become one. Each gardener working the winter months to gift us in spring with new paths, new downhill leaks of yellow and blue, new fish in ponds. Each to be found in their own places over time, with the accretion of new stories now to tell.

I wanted to run, like the children were running, in a scream of joy down the plush, arced hill.