June 4, 2025

Good morning!

It’s Wednesday. In my dreams, I’d have a wall big enough to do a climbing hydrangea justice. Many years ago I planted one by the old front door. It quickly outgrew its paltry trellis and started scaling the front of the house, eating our paint and wood siding as it went.

With a heavy sigh, the hydrangea had to go. Now I can only admire other people’s climbing hydrangeas—and, in particular, this one. In years past, it spanned every inch of brickwork, cooling the house, cleaning the air, and offering shelter to no end of creatures.

Then they ripped the whole thing off the wall last fall. I won’t lie, I was bereft.

But I needn’t have worried. Here it is again, and possibly healthier and happier than before.

So, what do I know?

“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”

—Alan Watts

Onwards,

Clara