SOL21 Slice 20: Giver of joy

 

I am participating in the

 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL21).  

All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 

 every day for the month of March 2021.

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for nurturing teacher-writers!

On a tiny purple plastic child's chair, 

under a winter bare crepe myrtle, 

in the center of a triangular traffic island, 

there she sat, 

looking out at the world. 

Someone created a garden here, and she knew it to be hers and hers alone. Two-year-old Frog and I happened upon this magical corner on a short neighborhood walk. I had been by this little patch of "traffic calming area" so many times before, giving it nary a glance. Well, yes, once I had seen a gardener there, weeding, cutting down the spent growth of what I assumed were wildflowers. I remember her large floppy pink hat, catching my eye. I figured this gardener must live right nearby, perhaps across the street, and couldn't deal with the eyesore in the middle of her road, so set about to do some weeding. Like I said, it's a little triangle patch of land, perhaps twenty feet long on each side, at most? Drive, walk, cycle, jog by this invisible place and forget about it, there's nothing there.

Unless you are with Frog.

That chair caught her eye. Who put the chair there? Sure, we can go see that. We stepped up the curbed edge from the road and saw immediately that there were flat, irregular, flagstone pieces all around the perimeter, leading towards the center where the chair sat. We must follow the path! Frog jumped, hopped from stone to stone, and each step revealed more magic: a variety of butterfly ornaments perched on thin wires, poked into the ground, waving with the breeze, beckoning . . .yellow and purple crocuses and the promise of daffodils, swelled on their stems . . . look, here's some of the lamb's ear we see in Karen's garden! We must touch that . . . this is no abandoned patch of road, someone has been dreaming here.

There was one birdbath low to the ground filled with seashells and florist gems purple and blue. Frog squatted down next to this, instinctively touching and caressing the stones, letting them flow through her open fingers.  There were two more birdbaths yet to be discovered - these had river stones, rounded and smooth. Who was this gardener, this giver of joy?

On a tiny purple plastic child's chair, 

under a winter bare crepe myrtle, 

in the center of a triangular traffic island, 

there she sat, 

embracing the world. 

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find 

reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."

- Rachel Carson