Foxgloves and July Musings

This lovely painting was done by artist Tracey Porter (you can find her work on Instagram @porterartguild). I enjoy her whimsical, colorful and feminine work. It’s always a little “off-center” – a bow may be fantastically outsized or a color just a touch garish – but that’s what appeals to me. It’s not quite perfect but it’s perfect just the same.

What drew me to this image is the foxgloves to the left of the young woman. Up until last week, I did not have any foxgloves in my yard. I say “my yard” and not “my garden” because to consider that I have a garden is ridiculous. I have a few flowers and plants but I am no gardener. Still, a long stalk of purple hollyhocks appeared rather suddenly in the garden bed under my kitchen window.

Always captivated by the French housewife’s kitchen potager, I decided to plant a few herbs. Only four which I mostly likely would use:  parsley, chives, oregano, and basil. In order to get the stuff into the ground, I removed an old hosta plant which had grown too large. How I did this with only a spade in hand, is a mystery. Then, I leveled the soil and planted the herbs.

I watered every other day and saw a few weeds which I promptly pulled. But then I went away and so I didn’t catch the long stalk that was growing between my plants which I’m sure I would have pulled. By the time I did notice it, it was covered with soft purple flowers along its graceful line, quite long and very pretty. I photographed it and googled the picture just to make sure it was actually a foxglove. I don’t know how the lonely stem came to grow among my herbs.

The seeds of other foxglove plants from neighboring houses could have blown my way of course, but I think I disturbed something when I leveled the soil in my “potager”.  A quick AI search stated that foxgloves are perennials but only for a few years. Sometimes they will just appear again. Strange. I am now less concerned with how it came to be and just enjoying the beautiful flower while it remains.

So you may wonder if this is a treatise on the eternally ephemeral nature of SUMMER but it is not. We all already know summer’s fleeting loveliness.  I think my post is about unexpected gifts, especially of beautiful things and a reminder to appreciate them.  Now for the Musings…

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~ I’m very excited to see the final Downton Abbey movie coming out in September at theaters. Watching the new trailer brought a mist to my eyes. Composer John Lunn’s music, this time in a soft tinkling piano melody, immediately transported me back to the Sunday evenings I was mesmerized by the Crawley family and their fictitious ancestral estate. I think it will be a wonderful end-of-summer event.

~ Two weddings this summer have brought a fashion dilemma to my closet. I’m not ruling out that both events could occur on scorching summer days, especially the one that will be held outdoors.  Therefore, comfort is prescient in my mind. For the garden ceremony, I found a beautiful mint-green two piece dress online. Luckily, it came with a deep discount but unfortunately, the skirt was a final sale. I don’t understand retailing these days but I took my chances and I’m happy with it. I’ll wear a pretty straw hat too. The next wedding will be in early twilight and I’m so pleased that my closet gave up an old sateen dress that I only have to have taken in by my local tailor. Never expecting to find something aged that looks so nice, I am pleased.

~ If you can, search out Simmel-Merservey “Junior Prom” on YouTube.com.  I think you might enjoy this charming short color documentary from 1946 depicting high schoolers preparing and attending their junior prom. It’s an etiquette film and you will be left thinking how things have changed.

~ Loving lemonade all over again, my son-in-law made me one with blueberry juice. Icy cold and slate-blue I tried preparing my own combinations using strawberries. It’s been refreshing.

~ Staying with the culinary, I have decided that henceforth, I shall have a banana bread household. I always envied those women who bake every week, pouring forth banana bread constantly from their ovens. Given a great recipe from my friend Karen, I plan on having fresh banana bread either warming on the counter or in the freezer at all times. It makes the house smell so nice and it is such a heartwarming snack for company. That’s correct – a banana bread household…

~ I just finished reading Elyse Arons book about her friendship with handbag designer Kate Spade, We Might Just Make it Afterall;  My Best Friendship with Kate Spade. I was particularly interested in how Arons, Spade, and another friend developed their handbags from mere construction paper oddities at the kitchen table to a multi-billion and multi-layered company in just a few short years. In the 1990’s, I worked for a firm that occupied offices on the top floor of a luxury mall. Since Neiman Marcus was right below us, I was there the day the first “Kate Spade’s” hit the selling floor. I thought they were fanciful and unusual bags from the get-go so the book gave me a lovely nostalgic feeling and had me digging through my closet again for my one “Kate Spade”. I would call the book a fairly good “beach read”.

~ Oddly, I rediscovered the 1960’s and 70’s band The Moody Blues. This came about after I caught a haunting song on a friend’s Instagram post that I think must have been on the “B” side of one of their bigger hits. The tune is “Driftwood” and although I know I had heard it before years ago, it too, brought another sense of nostalgia to me. The atmospheric melodies and rich lyrics of the group have been playing on and on in my kitchen whenever I’m cooking. I’m struck with the youthful musicians who came up with such soul-stirring lyrics at such young ages.

Are you cultivating a garden, mysterious foxgloves, or any ephemeral summer musings of your own?