MountainMornings

Living in a townhouse, it’s been strangely comforting to know that Bob’s back, knees and elbows will be spared this Spring from the Big Clean-Up. No more hauling wheelbarrows filled with mulch. chainsawing stray limbs, or pruning branches on ladders. Our new chapter is getting better all the time! A landscaping crew arrived last week and plowed through all the heavy-lifting in two days, however the few feet in front of our front porch remains bare. What to do?

Why not spruce up our front yard?

The Bride had us over the other day to discuss her landscaping plans. Last year, when they moved into their first house, they tackled the back yard and installed a raised bed for veggies and a compost bin. Now she and the Groom are ready to beautify their run-of-the-mill foundation plants and install a fence. We gave her our opinions (isn’t it great when your adult children ask for your opinions?) but first we had lunch at Thistle Farms.

Thistle Farms is an amazing Nashville non-profit. It’s right in the Bride’s neighborhood and is so much more than a gift shop, cafe and tea house. I’ve been wearing their “Love Heals” cap for years and adore their hand soap and moisturizing lotions. Needless to say, the food is organic and heavenly! https://thistlefarms.org/

Thistle Farms’ mission is to HEAL, EMPOWER, AND EMPLOY women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction. We do this by providing safe and supportive housing, the opportunity for economic independence, and a strong community of advocates and partners.  We believe that in the end, love is the most powerful force for change in the world. 

“There but for fortune,” is the Joan Baez song that runs through my brain whenever I step through the door of Thistle Farms. Everyone has a story, and we all have scars – the difference is these women are actively working to change their lives. When the Bride walked in and I embraced her, I saw the cashier smiling at us, and I saw the longing in her eyes. Had she lost her mother? Did she have to give away her daughter in a court battle?

Like the Flapper had to give me away to her friend for safe-keeping after the car accident.

“Bloom where you’re planted” has always been my motto since marrying my gypsy ER doc. Would I love to still be living at the edge of a bird sanctuary behind a white picket fence in the Berkshires almost 40 years later? Sure, but that just wasn’t in the cards for us. What makes a house a home for me is difficult to pin down, my family and a dog of course. And to some extent, a few flowers.

This morning I ordered two dwarf lilacs to plant next to my front steps, to honor my foster mother Nelly Bly.