Summer 2022

Drawing by Zora

As I sit in my backyard, it is 10:30 pm and the air is cool. Cooler than in the house. We don’t have AC and I am grateful for that but the outside air is feeling good after a hot day in the garden.

I think I have mentioned before that I love gardening and here I am feeling so happy after a whole day working in the garden. I laid some mulch, weeded, cut some dead branches, added sand between paver stones that I laid last year,.. Oh and every ten minutes or so I laid in the kiddy pool that I have.

I kept calling it a “piscine”, pool in French and Zora told me first, it’s not a swimming pool, you can’t swim in it. I said, that’s why I called it a “piscine”, pool, not swimming pool. In French there is no swimming in the word piscine. Later in the day my friend Julie said, that’s not a pool it’s a “bassin”. I know, I just lay in it with my back and wet my legs and arms. It feels so good when it’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

My friend Julie and her son Gaspard are visiting us from Denmark right now and it is such a treat! Gaspard is Zora’s age and after an hour or two of no communication when they first met they are now spending all the time laughing and playing together. I am thankful they love each other’s company as much as I love my friend. Julie and I met in our first year of college. She went to Denmark when I came to Colorado for our semester abroad while studying Modern Applied Languages.

We hate to say it but it has been twenty years since we have not seen each other. That being said it feels like two years. We can still laugh, relate and have so much fun together. I guess we have a lot to say since we have not been in the presence of each other for that long.

Tomorrow we are going to weave. I will teach the children and their parents to weave tapestry. I can’t say enough how much I enjoy teaching. It could also be because I balance it between markets and creating my own art.