Recently, Pat and I were invited to celebrate a friend’s 50th. It was deeply meaningful to be included in her special guest-list as we’re still relatively new to this community. I had a glorious time making up the gift with wildflowers and grasses from River Goose that happened to be drying in a simple white ceramic jug in my kitchen; and we had a fabulous time celebrating with her.

Then, a few weeks back, I was invited to a friend’s tea-party to celebrate her birthday. I popped a card of a recent landscape work into a frame; wrapped it in brown paper; wrote a card; bound it all with a single thread of twine repurposed from the spinach I’d bought earlier that day; and added a single twig of lavender from my garden pot.

I got to think about the joy of coming-together to celebrate. Perhaps we (I) don’t do it enough anymore. I mean in the simple way of things; simply getting together and being in-person. Being present. Even for ‘ordinary’ birthdays or occasions. Post-Covid, much still seems to require effort and energy we seem not to have in abundance. Possibly too, we’ve forgotten that we can do things in simple ways without much fanfare, and that there’s good-energy to be gotten from engaging ordinarily in real-peoples-space.