The water lily you see in the photo was taken in the tended portion of an otherwise now stagnant garden that for most of my childhood had bustled with all manner of life.  Bright blue crabs and slippery turtles would scuttle through layers of coral rock beneath the foliage, while peacocks wandered above on the winding banyan covered paths that lead out onto wide fields of intense, uniquely Floridian, light. We would walk along attentively but without deliberate appreciation.

It was home, after all.

It had been years since I visited, so the overall scene that greeted me was a bit of a shock, especially when a volunteer told me they were working to thin out the upper canopies, to circulate the light more naturally. What shocked me is that somewhere along the way, it had been allowed to go to seed in the first place, which I had never imagined happening.

I felt as if my childhood self was standing there, asking for attention.

This blog too, or the intention it represents, has been a bit neglected. So my newly uncovered intention is to decompartmentalize expression, to open chained off passageways so as to allow better flow between the spaces… to extend myself more, and stop trying to get everything right. Even though there will be messy and unfinished areas and many works in progress, my vision is that this will become a more consistently tended to garden.