New Orleans - Enchanted Field Trip

I stepped off the plane like someone who is always stepping off the plane, and up to the curb where we waited for the white truck, which was stuck in traffic. The air was almost jovial, sun trickling sideways and the scent of flowers bouncing off the breeze.

“This place reminds me of California crossed with Buenos Aires,” I thought, as if I had spent hours and weeks exploring its essence.

The wind in the truck was warm, and I sat in the back while the men spoke in the foreign language they had created through years and years of self-referential inside jokes. I smiled as if I had always known the comfort of this chatter, a chatter I would probably never fully make sense of. It was the symbol of a special bond that I would honor and never insult with a failed attempt to infiltrate, something I would appreciate from the outside, like the way my parents loved each other when I was a child.

I landed in this place of foreign comfort – and was not perplexed by the paradox of it. My mind was curious, “How could it feel so normal to be some place I’ve never been?” Yet, my heart and soul were settled, like something had been decided without having consulted my mind.

The entire essence of the place, for me, could be summed up in those first few moments. The air, the light, the love I felt but couldn’t understand the language of. Walking through the streets and through the park, walking and walking for days after my arrival, the same feeling was there, always.

Even the ghost I came upon in a corridor beneath a stairway was laughing at me as I went by, as if to say, “Silly woman, we’ve been waiting for you.”






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Urban Gardens, Part 1 - Fire Escape Garden

This summer, I rented a car several times for various excursions, for business and pleasure. I visited the Berkshires twice, went all the way to northern Ohio, and drove across Long Island to Shelter Island. Each time I drove somewhere, I would inevitably come upon a garden center or farm selling flowering plants, and I would stop and select a new plant friend to take home.

In the Berkshires, there was this huge, amazing garden center and greenhouse. I got two different little flowery plants there - each with different size buds in different shades of purple. In Ohio, I stopped at a local garden store close to my parents house and found a huge petunia plant, in yet another shade of purple. Driving back from Shelter Island, I found this amazing farm where they sold all kinds of organic produce, and there I bought a pot of sunflowers, ready to bloom.

Over the summer, I added all of these friends to my fire escape, where I had decided to keep a few other plants I had accumulated in Brooklyn. It began to look like a country summer's day outside my city window! They say that living things vibrate at a different rate from non-living, and that, on some level, we are able to consciously perceive this. I will say, that whenever I look out at all of the beautiful flowers and leaves reaching towards the sky from outside my window, I am brightened, energized. There is perfection in nature. And it's perfectly effortless.

It's this perfect, natural, effortless energy that I get to see each time I pass by my living room window - and I have found it incredibly inspiring! It makes me more attune to the weather (when it rains, the plants don't need as much water, and on hot days, they need extra), and has me thinking about the change of seasons (most of the plants only last one year!). In just a glance, I am reminded of nature's cycles, long and short, and how we are always growing and changing - in different ways, at different paces - constantly, and without effort. (Or sometimes WITH effort - but my plants remind me that it isn't necessary to strain.)


I love my little fire escape garden.

Ohio Field Trip

Back to My [Garlic] Roots


This summer I was fortunate enough to have some time to relax at my parents' house in the country outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Ohio is beautiful this time of year! It's so green and lush. Back in June, my 2-year-old niece from Colorado had gazed into the forest behind my parents' house and said, "Ooh, look at that jungle." That's how lush it is!


Being there, enjoying nature, made me want to capture some of the fresh, full feeling of summer. This blog entry is packed with photos of the beautiful summer plants I noticed there. What I was observing was that I like the stillness I sense in plants. I find that there's something magical about sensing their quiet aliveness, knowing that they're growing all the time, while seeming to remain so steady and still. There is a lot of peace in nature, and plants are stunning examples of that - little pieces of peace tucked into small packages that collectively make a plethora of peace.


My mom is a wonderful gardener - these photos were all taken in her gardens - and she gardens just like a mom! Nurturing, supplying sustenance, and then stepping back and just letting things run wild. For instance, her mint went crazy and took over 1/4 of her herb and vegetable garden. It's so beautiful and fragrant, I don't blame her for leaving it that way. When she talks about it, she makes it sound like it has a mind
of its own, "That mint just decided to take over this whole corner!"


And the way she says it is half aghast at its audacity, and half proud. Just the way she parented me. (A loving joke, Mom.)


She also has a garlic patch that she started from the bulbs of my late paternal grandfather's garden. Grandpa Sloboda used to yank the garlic out of the ground, peel it, and eat it right there! He claimed it was why he never got a cold. My mom gave me some seeds from the top of one of the garlic plants so that I can have some of Grandpa's garlic for my own windowsill herb garden. The very same garlic that my Grandpa used to eat has now spread its seeds from his garden to my mom's and soon mine. I love the idea of this! I love that these plants passed on their own genes just like my ancestors did to me. We can observe the circle of life in a real, living - not to mention tasty - way. And hopefully now, I'll stop getting colds. (Grandpa's spirit is alive!)

My trip was a delight. I got to spend time with the richness of the lush plants in the country, with my parents, my hilarious brother, and with happy memories of the sunny Ohio summers amidst which I grew up. And my mom sent me back with garlic and fresh lettuce from her garden, so I've been enjoying the tastes all week back in the city!


Photos, Top to Bottom, Left to Right: Mint, Grapevine + Sky, Snapdragon, Misc. Flowers, Beetles Mating on Grape Leaf, Mint Forest, Grandpa's Garlic Seeds + Tiny Bee, Queen Anne's Lace Running Wild I + II.

More Ohio photos on my flickr site!