Yesterday morning I got up with more than an hour to spend before the girls would wake, a rare occasion. I decided to enjoy quiet time outside, sitting on my front porch, reading, meditating and listening. From the chair beside our door I saw a different view of the garden that runs along the side of our house, between the foundation and the driveway. By the early morning light, I could look at all that Abigail and I had planted together this spring.
The cosmos now are blooming. I don’t know if these are seeds we planted this summer or self-seeded from last year. These cosmos are yellow and orange bursts, like stars, many blossoms branching off of one plant, begging to be picked. More blue bachelor buttons have opened. The big pumpkin plant is beginning to bloom also, yellow petals emerging among the jungle-green mass of leaves.
So on this Saturday morning I admired these cosmos coming into flame. I thought about bachelor buttons. I noticed my little basil seedlings, once incubated on the kitchen windowsill packed into a peat pot, now beginning to take off on their own, like babies walking.
And then I noticed something new, something I hadn’t seen before. Usually I approach the garden from the driveway. And I rarely find time to sit in quiet on my porch and just enjoy. Abigail’s pepper plants had barely blossomed, only recently showing little white flowers, and, as it was already mid-August, I had figured that there was little probability of peppers this summer. They were purchased on sale at the grocery store, for fifty cents, and planted by Abigail with her plastic shovel. I reasoned that their barrenness had created bargain and perhaps we had already received our moneys worth for these refugee seedlings.
But while sitting in my chair, looking out from the porch on a quiet Saturday morning, I spied a little green pepper – two inches long! From the driveway view, only blossoms were visible, but one had already become a fruit. Camoflaged in the greenery, and hidden behind, this little vegetable spoke joy to me: I was delighted! How I need faith to look and see even when I doubt. And I realized also that sometimes I need to stop, take the time and seek a new perspective so I can discover the wonders waiting for me.
