A pause at the center of the day, set the work aside, let the hungry lead to the kitchen.

The teaspoons had been disappearing from the flatware drawer. Over the course of a handful of years, off they’d gone to who knows where (I have a strong suspicion that boys were involved).

It’s been all about tables in my world, lately. Dining tables, foyer tables, end tables, night stands, drinks tables, picnic tables. Such crucial items, they are, for our living well.

I’m quite amazed that I can sit here at the picnic table on the terrace and write to you. In a sundress, no less.

A woman stopped me on Hollywood Boulevard last month, and asked if she could take pictures of my hair.

A length of cotton rope, tight between two posts. White cotton sheets, draped and dancing in the breeze. Glorious summer sun.

The relative quiet of the Ojai valley was so welcome after the thrumming energy of LA.

Life is interesting, isn’t it? How timing and events, curious circumstances and appointments unaware, can come together in a beautiful chronology that you couldn’t have planned if you’d tried? 

It’s like a gift, wrapped in birdsong, tied with morning’s sun. An early start to day-long permission to do nothing more than putter at the potting bench, dig in the soil, rearrange the flowerbeds.

It’s mid April and the earth is showing faint, hopeful signs of waking.

I knew they’d be coming soon. They’re always first to bloom, the first to crack from winter’s shell.

It can be found in galleries and shops, museums and attics, yes. It can also be found in textiles, in the pages of vintage books, on your own scratch paper, in your camera roll.