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What with the holiday and the rain, and the current main attraction a night-time thing, I pretty much had the local botanical gardens all to myself all afternoon. (There was a group of three people outside who weren't staff.)
The original plan had been just to hit the trails for an hour, for exercise. But the rain somehow made everything seem brighter and deeper and more of itself.
I decided to take my time. As a result, I registered details I hadn't noticed before...
(Yes, she's nursing snakes.)
...as well as exploring sections of the sculpture trail and side-paths (turns out there's more than one bamboo grove) I hadn't got to before:
In the Japanese pavilion, I studied an ant frozen near the wick of one of the candles for a while, and then looked out at the garden for a longer while.
I'd received some terrible news about a friend earlier in the day. This bench...
Another friend called me while I was looking at one of the herb beds. He could hear the rain drumming onto both my umbrella and the pavement. I moved down the path (in part so I could raise my voice above the rain without disturbing the other three people, who happened to be nearby at that point) and toward the Howe Garden, eventually settling into a chair in the shed.
Outside, the rain was clinging to leaves and rushing through spouts and over rocks. The lily pads in the Seasons Garden fountain are spectacular. It was still light enough at 6 -- the rain still drizzling down -- for me to pull on my gloves and pull at the weeds in my own yard for a while.
The original plan had been just to hit the trails for an hour, for exercise. But the rain somehow made everything seem brighter and deeper and more of itself.
I decided to take my time. As a result, I registered details I hadn't noticed before...
(Yes, she's nursing snakes.)
...as well as exploring sections of the sculpture trail and side-paths (turns out there's more than one bamboo grove) I hadn't got to before:
In the Japanese pavilion, I studied an ant frozen near the wick of one of the candles for a while, and then looked out at the garden for a longer while.
I'd received some terrible news about a friend earlier in the day. This bench...
Another friend called me while I was looking at one of the herb beds. He could hear the rain drumming onto both my umbrella and the pavement. I moved down the path (in part so I could raise my voice above the rain without disturbing the other three people, who happened to be nearby at that point) and toward the Howe Garden, eventually settling into a chair in the shed.
Outside, the rain was clinging to leaves and rushing through spouts and over rocks. The lily pads in the Seasons Garden fountain are spectacular. It was still light enough at 6 -- the rain still drizzling down -- for me to pull on my gloves and pull at the weeds in my own yard for a while.
