Chasing Lightning Bugs Studio Blog

my friend teta died a couple of months ago.  the illness that took her was shocking and sudden and cruel. she died just as spring was beginning.  just as the air was warming and the grass was beginning to green.  two short months before she had cried with me when edgar died.  and didn't know how sick she was herself. her's is a loss that keeps sinking in.  

teta was a gardener.  a mother first, and then a gardener.  an artist and a friend and a storyteller.  but all of the layers of her found their way into her garden.  i always picture her hands creased with dirt.  roughened and scratched and beautiful.  teta has left gardens, orphaned and wild gardens that are now bursting through the earth and blooming.  waiting for her, looking for her.  everywhere she lived, she left a garden. and teta lived in the house beside us, the house that is now the studio.  and she built gardens in front and in the back and a huge one on the side.  she built stone steps that move up the little hill from the garden shed.  and the last time ever i saw her was last summer when she came to tidy up her garden and take plants and bulbs to her new home, her new garden.

this sign has been in her garden here for 9 years.  i love this sign, hand painted, leaning against a tree with ivy growing around it, keeping it in place.  the paint is chipped away now, and faded.  but it says.....weeding wench.  have trowel will travel....and then her phone number.  and off she would go to create gardens for others, sharing her gift.  her genius.

     

 these green spring days will forever make me think of her beauty and her kindness and her talents and her gardens.