Friday Ramble - Summer's Ticking Clock

Somewhere in the dusty recesses of my noggin, the passage of these sultry summer days is being marked, and ever so wistfully. The clock of the seasons is ticking away in the background, and hearing it, I find myself pondering the lessons held out by this golden interval that is passing away all too swiftly.

The other three seasons of a northern calendar year are splendid of course, and there are surely other fine summers ahead, but this summer's days are numbered. We are sliding gently down the hill toward autumn, days growing shorter, nights growing longer. It seems as though summer just got here, but here we go again,

Thoughts of coming and going are ever inscribed on summer's middling pages, and they're unsettling notions, making for restlessness and vague discontent, a gentle melancholy about the nature of time, a wistful appreciation of what is falling away and the transience of all earthly things.

An awareness of suchness (or tathata) is a middle-of-the-summer thing. For the most part, one goes gently along with the flow of the season, breathing in and out, trying to rest in the moment and do the things around home and garden that need doing.

Roses are a perfect metaphor for the season. Many old roses bloom once in a calendar year, but what a show they put on when they do. Their unruly tangles of wickedly thorny canes and blue-green leaves wear delicate pink (for the most part) blooms with crinkled petals and golden hearts. Each rose is unique, and each is exquisite from budding until its faded petals flutter to earth like snowflakes.

For several weeks after Midsummer, ambrosial fragrance lingers in every corner of the garden, and I find myself falling in love with old roses all over again.  It is nothing short of a miracle that creatures so beautiful and fragile thrive this far north. 

I pour over Taylor's Guide to Roses and drool over varieties that would never survive in my part of the world: Blush Noisette, Souvenir de Malmaison, Alba Maxima, Fantin Latour, Tuscany Superb, Rosa Mundi, Variegata de Bologna, Belle Amour and Ispahan. My copy of Taylor is falling apart, and it is probably time to replace it, but the little volume is an old friend and I cherish it.

Once in a while, I catch a glimpse of the Great Mystery while I am hanging out in the garden, and that is surely what this old life is all about. There are times when I wish I was better at remembering that and keeping everything in perspective, but forgetting now and then is quite all right - I have the garden to remind me.