Sunday, August 18, 2013

Garden in Summer 2013


These days I love waking up around 5 or 6 in the morning to tend the garden before the sun is in full sight.

It was a very private moment of the day for me, a block of time before neighbours get out to work, before birds start to tweet, before bugs wake up, before much traffic begins to flow, and before everyday routine resumes. The garden is in full shade around this time, bright but elegantly grey in tone. Given that I do not need to dodge burning sun beams, I am able to feel the garden in a more intimate way. It smells fresh, feels cool, and sounds quiet. Colours are even brighter. Every second is endearing to me.

My garden was never productive in summer in the past due to irresistible heat and ever-proliferating bugs, but this year I sowed some zinnia and portulaca grandiflora with a very humble expectation that they would eventually flourish. Surprisingly they have taken over the entire space of the front patch with their bright blossoms at different heights.

They are blooming well fearless of the sun, and the balls of colours add pleasant varieties to the monotonous golden light in summer.

Sunday, August 04, 2013

A New Colour


A wooden cover for ventilator has been sitting in our garden for a couple of years. Brown is always a safe choice of colour for furniture, I reckon. I never dislike it, and it, too, tends to be my ultimate choice; nonetheless, the natural tone of the wood is, to be honest, never very exciting. Between having fun and playing safe, even though I had been brewing over a revolutionary idea against K's reservation about loud colours, no action was ever taken.

Summer and vacation are two factors that would lead to changes.
I spent an entire day last Friday painting it blue, a careful choice of mine, Virginia clock blue, which provokes a sentiment of nostalgia. My amateurish skills with paint and my obsession with perfection plus the weather made the project too full of details to complete early. Yet, the first large-scale DIY was  done without much hindrance at the end of the day.

The new color is adorable, and this adventure with visual effect has allowed the reformed furniture to resume its presence in the summer garden in harmony. It is quite likely that I will never try to paint any large furniture again in near future due to the great labors and time that it would require. Yet, it is also true that the experience does give me a moral to reflect upon in response to the current state of my life. My prolonged hesitation about this DIY task had yielded no result but endless longing until a decision was made and action taken. This summer I am also in the turmoil of pondering over possible changes in career, struggling with the two things that I am least good at: letting go and moving on. It is a decision between safe and risky choices, between banality and adventure, and it is self-evident that something more ambitious and brave has to be done so that I am able to enjoy life and work. Yet, the indecisiveness or the fear of making decisions poisons my heart.