The Green Café
Teacups and pens … are the clutter of quiet … in the green café … of my own yard …
There’s a new place to sit and write in the green café of my own yard. It’s a small round glass table, minus the umbrella, pulled out of the shed this past July when we had a house full of company in town for my son Dylan’s wedding. It sits on one end of the porch in between the wooden swing and our rarely used grille. I bought the grille for the propane burner on it because I feel helpless if I can’t make tea when the electricity goes out.
Wind chimes call me … to this place of worship … I follow the birdsong … a mantra of presence …
My café table has a green-and-white-striped cushioned chair that matches the missing umbrella. From it I’ve eaten the food of summer on the lunch menu – big garden salads with fresh tomatoes and basil – and watched butterflies flit about the yard. In the hole in the middle of the table where the umbrella is supposed to go, I put a vase made by my potter son and have kept it filled with flowers, zinnia, cosmos, purple coneflowers, and marigolds.
The sound of it pouring … brings me back to the present … like water falling into Bridget’s Well …
There is no waiter to take my order, no disruptions either. It’s a great place to sip my tea and read the mail. The sun shines on me while I sketch low-tech my latest thoughts into my notebook. With a small adjustment to the chair, I can be in the shade.
3 cups full … a holy trinity … flowers bloom in devotion … of the summer’s immaculate conception … all colors of the rainbow under one sun …
But my green café days are numbered. The butterflies have already moved on to warmer climates and spiders have taken their place. It took living in the country for me to understand why spider webs are a symbol of Halloween. They appear in large numbers here at the first sign of fall. Like developers taking over the neighborhood, they first began weaving a city of webs along the forsythia bushes and have since spread out onto the porch rafters.
Far away dogs … like an unanswered phone … bark the urgency of the world …
Soon it will be too cold to sit outside and my café will no longer be a green one.
October 3rd, 2006 9:25 am
sigh…nasssssty spiderses…we hate them!
October 3rd, 2006 9:27 am
Hi! You know how I cherish my tea and tea cups! 😉
I always hate seeing summer come to a close! At least the leaves are nice…but I hate SNOW! I hate it! ;(
October 3rd, 2006 10:35 am
Wouldn’t you rather be outside than any other place! So much to see and hear, to fill the senses, to write about and capture in faux film on our digital cameras. It sounds like that table was in the shed just waiting for you to claim it and release it from its retirement, back into the light.
October 3rd, 2006 11:11 am
Oh I hear you on that one Colleen. I so dread all the life in my backyard leaving me. I can’t even bear to pull my stooped sunflower out of the ground!
Your spot looks so charming and inviting.
This morning I was out pinching the basil and smelling it. I will miss that so much in the coming months.
October 3rd, 2006 12:22 pm
What a perfect spot for you to “loiter.” It looks wonderful and the ideal place to just let your thoughts flow. With winter approaching in your area…you’ll have to find yourself a new Green Cafe. Love the photo.
October 3rd, 2006 12:30 pm
BEAUTOFUL post Colleen. I oove this whole thing. I got such a feeling from it and about you. Marvelous, my dear.
And about those Spiders…The Webs are rampant here, too and it isn’t really “fall”…I am not sure I understand it, quite honestly…But I love that you made that connection with Hallowean…Of course! It makes perfect sense!
October 3rd, 2006 2:27 pm
“It’s a small round glass table” … “Wind chimes call me” … “I put a vase made by my potter son and have kept it filled with flowers, zinnia, cosmos, purple coneflowers, and marigolds” … “all colors of the rainbow under one sun” …
Such perfect Feng Shui energy!
October 3rd, 2006 2:30 pm
Isn’t it great to have your own private area? My daughter and hubby in NY have 12 acres of privacy and when I called her today she was outside sitting nude in the bathtub that they are going to install. She said it was such a lovely warm day that it seemed the only thing to do! Ah, youth…
October 3rd, 2006 5:26 pm
What a lovely spot you created for yourself. Good for the soul, I’d say. Now if we could just get a little of your cooler air around here!
October 3rd, 2006 5:32 pm
Sounds like a lovely place to write.
October 3rd, 2006 8:26 pm
There’s no place quite like the green cafe.
October 4th, 2006 12:21 am
Soon the colors of the Blue Ridge will turn red, yellow, orange, gold and all shades in between.
October 4th, 2006 8:08 pm
Yummmy. Your green cafe sounds similar to my back deck, where the ‘acceptable’ attire this time of year is my big fluffy red robe and socks.
October 4th, 2006 10:18 pm
A private world outdoors is the best place to unscramble your words on a page! I love being by the lake when I write. I wrote my first tune for one of my poems there. It just floated in to me! Maybe the loon sang it to me!
I also like sitting in my summer bedroom and hearing the rain on the roof when I’m writing down my random thoughts.
May 13th, 2010 12:06 am
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