WARM AS THE SUN.......

I don't know about you, but in my life, few things feel as luscious the sun on my skin, and the deep warming that occurs after just a few minutes of working outside on a warm spring afternoon. I'm talking "warm" -- not "hot".....I talked to my best friend, who lives in Henderson, Nevada, earlier today. She reported that the temperature rose to 104 degrees today, and being a woman without a pool, she was not very comfortable. I, on the other hand, here in NCW, and also with no pool, was in my element, with a wickedly warm 84 degrees on my southwesterly exposed sundeck. No one could have felt better than I, as I trotted out my new flat of transplanted dahlia seedlings this afternoon. So many of our club members have just been waiting for a day like this, and today we were hit smack dab in the middle of our longings with today's incredible conditions. When talking with a dahlia friend earlier, I experienced an "aha!" moment....I realized that when we can get outside, experience the freshness of the air and the generosity of the sun's rays, and the promise of the soil, we become connected at one of the most basic and fundamental levels of life, made up of the most enduring qualities......Propagation, tending, nurturing, parenting, expecting, hoping, supporting, exulting, sharing, imagining, risking, testing, and celebrating. I could probably create a separate blog entry for each of these things, but most of the readers of this blog could do the same. We speak a common language, we share a common culture. Dahlia growing is indeed a culture, and I, for one, am grateful for the anthropology that defines it. Isn't life just the best, when you can be part of such a journey?