My random thoughts go to the theory "Six degrees of Separation". There was a Facebook posting a few weeks ago that I saw because I am a friend of the friend who posted it. It made me realize that I have a connection with someone that I see quite often lately now that I spend more time being an art vendor whom I've never known personally. I know some of his childhood friends and his mother knew my parents. He even owns a piece of furniture that was purchased from my family's antique shop back in the day.
That one degree of separation gave way to recall of a random memory from my childhood. My memories come to me like snippets of video footage. As I walked down the street of the bayfront community I don't see with whom I was walking. I think it was Mrs. Rose and her daughter Kelly. I used to visit them as a child when they moved to Long Beach from Dares Beach. It may have been on one of those overnight visits I used to have with Kelly but I can't swear to it. As we walked, we approached a beautiful garden that grew on the outside of a cinderblock fence. There was a lady tending her beautiful garden and we stopped to visit with her for a few moments. I don't remember the conversation or how long it lasted. I don't even remember her face. My lense was focused on the beautiful flowers growing on the outside of the gray wall that guarded the home's privacy. There were open portholes in the wall, too high to peek through but still allowed the bay breezes to pass through. I remember wondering why she hid the garden from herself and thinking maybe there is another one beyond the gates that only she and her family could see. I wondered what it might look like but was too timid to ask.
As an adult, my husband and I bought our first home in that same community. In the gully alongside my yard grew some of the beautiful vintage orange daylilies that graced many yards in the community, including that beautiful garden I remembered as a child visiting there. I dug them up and placed them in the garden I created in my hillside yard. The beauty of the garden I created is long gone and overgrown; too much for the new owners to care for I guess. But that street side garden I remembered so very long ago always inspired me to create something not just for my own eyes to see. I guess the subliminal message I learned so very long ago was to create beauty in your life, not just for one's self, but for everyone else to see.
That one degree of separation gave way to recall of a random memory from my childhood. My memories come to me like snippets of video footage. As I walked down the street of the bayfront community I don't see with whom I was walking. I think it was Mrs. Rose and her daughter Kelly. I used to visit them as a child when they moved to Long Beach from Dares Beach. It may have been on one of those overnight visits I used to have with Kelly but I can't swear to it. As we walked, we approached a beautiful garden that grew on the outside of a cinderblock fence. There was a lady tending her beautiful garden and we stopped to visit with her for a few moments. I don't remember the conversation or how long it lasted. I don't even remember her face. My lense was focused on the beautiful flowers growing on the outside of the gray wall that guarded the home's privacy. There were open portholes in the wall, too high to peek through but still allowed the bay breezes to pass through. I remember wondering why she hid the garden from herself and thinking maybe there is another one beyond the gates that only she and her family could see. I wondered what it might look like but was too timid to ask.
As an adult, my husband and I bought our first home in that same community. In the gully alongside my yard grew some of the beautiful vintage orange daylilies that graced many yards in the community, including that beautiful garden I remembered as a child visiting there. I dug them up and placed them in the garden I created in my hillside yard. The beauty of the garden I created is long gone and overgrown; too much for the new owners to care for I guess. But that street side garden I remembered so very long ago always inspired me to create something not just for my own eyes to see. I guess the subliminal message I learned so very long ago was to create beauty in your life, not just for one's self, but for everyone else to see.
This pastel is a portrait of one of those daylilies I dug up and planted in my yard so many years ago.
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