Hot House Tomatoes

Marinara, July 2025

Tomato Baby, July 2025

It’s hot, hot, hot. And humid.

We run errands early in the morning. Pick up corn and tomatoes. And sourdough tortillas from the farmers market.

The funny little tomato catches my eye, and the vendor at the market laughs when I tell her I need to carry it separately, not in the basket, but in my hand. She says I am not the first person who has bought a funny or odd looking vegetable and just smiles. I am happy for this small gift.

Tomatoes will sit for photos without complaint.

Simplicity at Home

Sage and Pottery, July 2025

  1. The only thing I can reliably grow is herbs. And I love them all. I cook with them and take great pleasure in cutting them to arrange into bouquets as though they were dahlias or zinnias. What they lack in colorful range, they make up for in texture, fragrance, usefulness, and reliability.

  2. I checked a book out from the library, Simplicity at Home: Japanese Rituals, Recipes, and Arrangements for Thoughtful Living. I don’t read the words but I study the pictures because I love design. I know I am not going to fold my clothes into perfect little stacks, grow food from vegetable scraps, make my own soap, or dye old clothes. I might consider a bath with with herb scented salts. But because I am easily influenced and love the thrill of the hunt, I’ve been searching for little pottery dishes and bowls at thrift shops. With great success.

  3. I’m skim reading The Secret Lives of Color and stopping to linger over the shades of green. Verdigris, absinthe, emerald, kelly green, scheele’s green, terre verte, avocado, and celadon. My bathroom is painted a color called Chilean Sea Bass and I feel as though I am in a spa every time I step into that little 6 foot by 6 foot space. It’s amazing how that change in paint color affected my entire day in such a positive way.

  4. I felt restless this afternoon and knew I needed to make something or write something. So here I am again. And the impulse behind the energy feels expansive and creative and kind.

Learning To See

I think we’ll go look at the the osprey along the Potomac River today. Dave will drive and I will read out loud to him. When we arrive at Westmoreland State Park I wonder why we don’t come here more often, and make a mental note to book a cabin once the park renovations are completed. Virginia is the first state park system in the nation to install a viewfinder at each of its 43 locations. The viewfinders are equipped with special lenses designed to help those with red-green color blindness experience an expanded range of visible color. We spend some time learning to see through the viewfinders. Just to see what we might see.

I know that this photo of the viewfinder will be the last addition to my current project. A photograph of a viewfinder, not the camera finder but a larger version of the same, is the perfect ending to my travelogue. Isn’t every photograph really about learning to see? To notice. And to feel it all so deeply.

The book, A Guidebook For Small Travels, is complete now. It’s being printed and you can view it here if you’re interested.

Sunday Drives

Sometimes on Sundays, I feel unsettled. There is an old script from an earlier version of my life that says I must stay busy and be productive. Sunday, with it’s long stretch of unstructured time, feels unsafe. I often make up work to do for this day, turning what could be a relaxing day into a project day. But the truth is, neither contrived busyness nor forced stillness really works. So we’ve been taking Sunday drives in the country to disrupt this old pattern of mine. I get lost in the views. I love the hot summer breeze, the motion of our van, the car picnics, the exhaustion at the end of the journey. The late afternoon nap back at home. It’s really pretty perfect, what we do on an given Sunday.