Saturday

Botanical gardens off season, Part 1I love our botanical gardens, but after four years in Denver I have yet to visit them in winter. So during one of our Indian summers, I decided to take Q for an early-morning tour.

It was wonderful. We had the place practically to ourselves. Most of the remaining autumn foliage had been instantly wilted by the first hard freeze and early snowstorm, but there was plenty of beauty to be observed...
...and plenty of wonder left for a just-past-two year old to explore.







The temple of the bells is still Q's favorite part. She just can't seem to get over the wonder of it.

As for me, I particularly love the mosaic stone pathway that leads from that temple, reminding my greatly of a sacred path we walked in Nanjing, just days after adopting her.

6 comments:

Mlle Paradis said...

Lovely post as always Maia, so full of patterns and textures and light. And Q as always fitting perfectly and naturally into her environment. I think it's interesting that she responded so to the temple bells. Just because you took her out of China so early doesn't mean that she didn't absorb a great deal of her surroundings and their characteristics. I left Hawaii as a two year old and still feel a profound attachment to its atmosphere. I think I believe in genetic memory too. The stones also remind me of mussels and calades - both wonderful textures.

Gretchen said...

Pure magic! I can feel those bells in my bones... Q is a little wonder of nature. I love the portrait photo of her (that black leather jacket! oh my...), revealing a wise, old soul. Beautiful post!

Yoli said...

I like all those colors, so much harmony in the groupings. Have you cut the Q's hair at all?

Maia said...

I still have not cut Q's hair beyond trimming the back a couple times so she doesn't grow a mullet ;) She is still a natural pixie cut - though the past week or so I've noticed her "spikes" are getting "spikier".

FDChief said...

Maxine has lately fallen in love with her long hair: "I have long, LONG hair!" she croons, as she drifts in her tub like Ophelia. She will grudgingly let her mom (but not her dad) trim her bangs, but just barely enough to see.

I, too, love the portrait photo of Q caught in that sidewards glance, her eyes full of wonder and her face so still that she looks like she's caught in the midst of some mysterious toddler satori.

"...I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change."

lovepics said...

truly beautifull set of pictures...