9/14/2020

These asters are irrepressible. They don't care that it's now sweatshirt weather in the mornings and already the first yellow leaves are lying curled up on the ground underneath our neighbors' little maple tree, the one that always goes first on our street every fall.

Late to the party and making a dramatic entrance, the asters are the divas of the garden, true to their name which is based on the Latin for "star." Earlier in the summer they stayed in their allotted garden-space, looking humble, straight and green. But now they refuse to be controlled, stretching ridiculously far out of bounds in a melodramatic arc.

They reach so close to my chair that I can't help but look at them, bursting out all over with fuchsia and violet, as I set there trying to pray, or journal, or think planner-y thoughts about the day ahead of me. And this little distraction of beauty is exactly what I seem to need, every time.