rogers gardens
Breath and balance
A more enlightened person might have noted this without judgment., would've moved in gentleness from "what is" to "what will be." But I'm a work in progress, so I admit to thrashing around a bit before finding my way back to the yoga studio.
Life isn't an all-or-nothing experience, is it? I'm learning that anew everyday, in all aspects of my existence.
Effort and ease; will and acceptance…balance. I'm meditating on these concepts within my yoga practice, and also within my writing practice, because more each day, I'm seeing that they're one and the same.
Garden Inspiration
Long-time readers of this blog probably know how much I adore Roger’s Gardens. Even though I still wince whenever I think about this. It’s where I go when I need a spark of creativity, a splash of color…a glimpse of Mother Nature, strutting her seasonal stuff.
I can wander there for hours, soaking up inspiration and serenity, both.
Long story short, the Christmas Gallery wasn’t open yet, but I managed to peek around a few corners, cell phone camera at the ready. Totally out of context, here’s a tiny segment of a floor-to-ceiling, fully decorated tree.
At first glance, this looks rather…well, let’s just say that I thought it might need a little editing. A few substitutions here and there, and while we’re at it, how about paring back on the parrots, maybe add a few bows? Oh, the possibilities! But in fairness, I saw things differently when I stepped back a bit, allowing my eyes to take in the tree as a whole. That’s how it is with writing, isn’t it? You can edit as you go, of course, but the revision process is probably smoother (and more efficient) once you’ve written your way to The End.
Edited to add this wonderful excerpt from Claudia Osmond’s blog. Wow, can I relate!
“I write best when I read. Yes, when I read other people’s books, of course. But I mean, when I actually read and enjoy the words that are already in the document I’m working on. I’m a very visual person: I love format. I love fonts. I love the look of dialogue. I love deep black on crisp white. For me, writing is more than just getting the story out and dropping as many words as I can onto the page; although c’est tres important, aussi. But I’m slowly figuring out that my revisionitis isn’t only about rewriting. It’s also about allowing myself the pleasure of enjoying and appreciating the words that are on the page for the way they look and sound just as much as for what they mean. And amazingly, when I do that, the story progresses.
The trick is figuring out how to do that about three times faster than I currently am.”
Really, Santa, it wasn’t my fault!
On Sunday, we took our houseguest to Roger’s Gardens, an outdoor paradise for upscale Orange County residents who are looking for the finest greenery their greenbacks can buy –- and who can afford to hire other people to dig their purchases into the dirt.
Around Christmastime, Roger’s Gardens stocks their indoor boutique with theme-based Christmas trees and an impressive array of needful things. Perhaps the most popular area in the whole store is the Christopher Radko corner. There, you’ll find finely crafted ornaments to match your every interest and to suit every season, as long as price isn’t an object for you, of course. Each handcrafted ornament takes a full seven days to create, and their prices are a reflection of their exclusive, exquisite nature (ranging from $45.00 to hundreds of dollars).
Can you imagine the awe I felt as I gently held one in my hand, marveling over the craftsmanship and creativity? And can you perhaps also empathize with the horror I felt as a large man bumped my elbow from behind, startling me and sending that gorgeous ornament crashing to the floor?
A bejeweled woman in a Furstenberg wrap-around dress and four-inch heels (who had, until that fateful moment, been standing next to me) rushed to put distance between the two of us. “Oh, I’m glad that wasn’t me,” I heard her whisper to her friend as they both backed away. Meanwhile, I stood frozen in that spot, clutching the hanger that had somehow detached itself from the now-destroyed ornament and wishing for some sort of seismic activity to open the ground beneath me and swallow me whole.
Graciously and without a single sidelong look of disapproval, a store clerk rushed in, whisked the colorful glass shards into a dustpan, and then unceremoniously dumped the remnants into a nearby garbage can. Apparently, in this fantasyland environment, they don’t have a “You break it, you buy it” policy. Whew! So as shoppers around me returned to their conspicuous consumption, I retreated — as inconspicuously as possible under the circumstances — into the well-heeled, mostly high-heeled, crowd.
And so it was that I temporarily stepped through the looking glass and into Wonderland, leaving shards of glass in my wake.
Photo credit: Christopher Radko ornament, 2006