I have some good canned tomatoes to use up, and I was idling at the intersection of Walgreen’s and CVS, adding sour cream and basil oil to them in my imagination, and I started to cry.  Because she loved tomatoes so much, and who knows how long ago it was when she ate her last one?  And I played out the menu we would have eaten on any July night, before bad tomatoes were invented.  Dining in the one cool spot in the entire apartment, with heavy cold air blowing right on our plates from the huge air conditioner that hung from the living room window overlooking Fullerton Avenue.  It would have been Oscar Meyer hot dogs, and Libby’s Baked Beans, and thick red slices of tomato seasoned with salt.  Just salt.  Nothing else.  Because salt is all a good tomato needs.

Sometimes I love a picture even if it is not the best one.  Love is like that.  It improves your vision by revealing the things you can’t see.

Dear Coffee Shop:

I confess.  I stole your peonies and the last true lilacs of the year.  It broke my heart to see them nodding, to the dirt, heavy with their own incalculable extravagance.  I brought them home and marveled from the other side of the glass at what can never be mine – or yours.

No, I am not sorry I am a thief.  I only stole for love, and anyway – you’re welcome.

The rain that was supposed to ruin Sunday never happened, and that meant I unexpectedly ended up with a very free day.  I saw giant clouds and mammoth peonies.  The sun got into my bones; the breeze got into my hair. The car radio got turned up to LOUD with the windows down.  It was the kind of day that makes you forget that it isn’t always Summer.

Please enjoy this picture postcard from Regent Street in Madison, where some people fling daisy seeds around like candy, filling their yards with golden-eyed wonders, to the benefit of anyone willing to stop the car and look.

A lilac by any other name – (this is actually some kind of privet) – does indeed smell as sweet.  Full of rain, hiding on the retaining wall behind my patio, the fragrance of sweat and honey.  Heaven is often close at hand.

The week went a little differently from how I imagined, and that isn’t really news, is it?  As you see here, I got the big camera back just in time to worship at the spirea fairyland along Buckeye Road – and any older neighborhood where romantic souls have slathered “Bridal Veil” along property lines and driveways.  It hurts me to see spirea pruned into rigid hedges with only a few white puffs struggling to bloom on stubby twigs of old wood.  Spirea are languid, unruly beings, meant for lazy dreamers who like to leave things alone and see what happens.

I imagined I’d write to you at least a few times in the mornings this week before my class, but instead I was submitting homework at 6 a.m. every day.  This week I went to an orientation for a paralegal program I plan to start in the fall.  Our class seems to have started as we are meant to go on – working hard to follow instructions to the letter,  get things turned in on time, and wrap our brains around completely new territory as fast as possible.  It took all my powers to finish the assignments for each session. It was kind of fantastic being surrounded by people who care enough about what they are doing to care about what I am doing.  I have been missing that for so long.

What will take root in this new soil is an open question.  For now, I’ll leave things alone, and see what happens.

Sunday was True Junker Christmas.  The opening bell rang at 7 am sharp for the first Elkhorn Flea Market of 2015.  (By the way, there is no bell, but while you are standing in line at – oh, maybe 6:30 – stamping to keep warm, crowded with similarly ebulient people who think finding good junk is better than another hour of sleep, you do feel a little like a race horse ready to sprint.)

I will write a little more about our day, but for now you can see that I got a blue elk and had breakfast at the Elk diner, plus just a tiny bit of the wonderful treasures Junker Santa found for the other kids who woke up early to open their stockings.

To begin with – even with the big camera, I hardly ever have any idea whether I have made an image or not.  And now with only my phone to work with, my uncertainty is even more conclusive.  The bright lcd screen is wonderful, but it is no match for the world.   Between the sun and the wind and my nearsightedness, truly – I might just as well close my eyes.  Which – frankly – I sometimes do.

If I am honest, I have to admit to myself that the way I take pictures mirrors all the childish beliefs I still hold about Life, and its underlying Operating Principles.   Mostly, I still think that Good Things only happen because of Magic.  (This also means I believe that Bad Things happen because I am wicked, but that is a fairy tale for another day.)   Meanwhile, some dear, insane part of me is clings tenaciously to an absolute faith that if I stand helpless in a Paradise of Lilacs long enough, Magic is bound to come my way.

Yesterday, I couldn’t choose between going to see the lilacs, or visiting the Rosey Tree.  At first, I drove out to Rosey Tree, pulling up against the curb where Farm and Fleet’s driveway t-bones into the wild, neglected parcel she shares with huge arbor vitae, 2 enormous ash trees and an abandoned orchard.  I sat in the car, waiting to get out – but I didn’t.  Rosey Tree is maybe 50 paces from the driveway, through long grass and broken asphalt – but it is a long walk to a surprisingly isolated place.  It scares me to go there alone.

I watched a blue bird skimming from the giant ash tree to the scrub and back, muscling against a gusting wind that lay the grasses almost flat.  There were people nearby – a dozen cars passed me while I debated with my fear.  But taking pictures is an activity that isn’t compatible with cautious awareness.  I can’t help it. After the last 6 months, I just want safety.

After about 10 minutes admiring Rosey Tree from afar, I turned and headed toward the lilacs.  I decided I can’t let Rosey Tree haunt me.  If I feel ok being there, I’ll go back.  I loved seeing the bluebird though.  And the lilacs are beyond belief.