"The dream was always running ahead of me.
To catch up, to live for a moment in unison
with it, that was the miracle."
~ Anaïs Nin ~
The Mermaid Cove Mermaid surveys
her dreams in the making...
To catch up, to live for a moment in unison
with it, that was the miracle."
~ Anaïs Nin ~
The Mermaid Cove Mermaid surveys
her dreams in the making...
Finally, one has to just sit back, breathe, and enjoy the dream, just where it is. Yes, there is so much more you want to do, but if you are always running, striving, never stopping to enjoy the dream realized, not just the dream to come, you will never fully live and enjoy your life. And if you don't stop to relax and look and float in the joy, the bliss, the absolute jubilation in the moment that exists when your dream begins to take shape, you will never truly appreciate what you have, what you are accomplishing. It's good to have breaks in the creation of a dream and savor what is there, what you have already done. So today I shall share a little of that with you.
For privacy's sake I will not show pictures of the front of my magical little cottage. As anyone who knows me can tell you I am an extremely private person and it satisfies and comforts me to think that people will pass my little abode and think "nice little house" without ever imagining the magic that is happening behind the six foot privacy fence that encloses a vast area of land with a creek behind it and a magical mermaid paradise. Behind the ordinary is the extraordinary.
I will tell you that if you drove down my street you would see a white brick sort of ranch house but is it an odd shape and not, as the insurance man said, quite what you'd call a traditional ranch, (Well it's ME, duh...). But I will tell you that the front door, shutters, and fancy iron porch posts were all an old forest green, looking quite the worse for the wear, and the attached garage door was a worn, sad looking white. No more. Oh no. That was one of the first things I knew had to change.
I did not know that I would have to put a whole new roof on (shrug...) but it does look wonderful, and now the shutters and iron posts are painted a deep adobe pink, the front door a bright sky blue, and the garage door that same blue with the little ornate area above it adobe pink with the inner lining sky blue. From the street it looks like a different house. Hanging all around the porch are six baskets of flowers, two on either side of the front door eaves and one on each end; purple pansies, burgundy pansies, and gorgeous pink and white trailing geraniums. I shall have to try to get a picture of the flowers against the shutters and posts and garage door without revealing the rest.
Also, if you are looking at the house from the street you can see nothing of what is in back because the six foot high privacy fence starts on the sides near the front of the house and encircles such a large area in the back it could be a vast ocean on which a magic sailing ship might sail the ocean blue (I plan eventually to have the earth plowed all around the ship and plant thousands of forget-me-nots so the ship will actually look as if it is sailing on water. I will also include any and all blue flowers that I can find. What magic! What delight!) Can you not just see it sailing from behind it's hidden cove out onto open waters?
The ship was a rotting mess when I found it. A dingy grey with blue trim, rotting boards, a sad wreck of a ship, but I could only see the possibilities, the incredible magic thing it could be. It was power-washed, all the old and rotting boards removed and replaced, the staircase up to the ship built and when the workmen saw the colors I chose they said something along the lines of, "You're kidding right?" (It's best I leave out most of what they said. Ahem.) But eventually Scott and Vern, my two loyal workers, got into the spirit of the thing, wondering what crazy thing I might do next.
When you walk out the side door from my studio you walked out onto what is a very well built and sturdy as a rock deck. I fell in love with it when I saw it, old trees overhanging it, looking out into the woods, but it just wasn't me. It was a flat grey showing many years of use and could in no way be called attractive. Before I told the workmen I wanted to paint it they said, "Okay, what color is the deck going to be?" And Vern said, "And what color are the doors going to be." Ha ha ha, they knew me by now. Having refurbished and painted my glorious ship that once seemed like the dream of a madwoman, by the time they painted the shed across from the deck they got into the spirit of the thing and started having fun. Here's the shed before I go any further, and by the way it was painted the same color as the originally painted boat, a dingy grey with flaking blue trim and an old nasty roof. It got a new roof too and then got painted. I wanted it to match the ship, and as I go around the yard I use some of the same colors and add in some of the other colors so that there is a flow to the landscape. Here is the shed now opposite my deck...
You can see part of the picket fence
to the left of the shed...
Well, as I said, I am a gardener with more than a little whimsy in my soul, and I have, as Anne of Green Gables would have said, "Great scope for the imagination." I wanted a picket fence garden, and Scott and Vern got right on it...
There is a gate in the front and the whole area has been
weeded and cleaned out. This week the garden dirt will
arrive and whoa nelly! the planting will proceed apace...
Coco, checking on Scott and Vern's work on the garden gate.
It was at first a little cattywompus and they did some work
on it. Frankly, she doesn't trust them any farther than she
can throw them, and a 14 year old grumpy pug is not
someone to mess with...
If you are coming down in from the huge yard where the ship is at the back, this is what you see walking toward the house...
All of the windows down the side of the house are my
studio windows. The natural light in the studio is
breathtaking and the fresh air divine!
There was nothing along the house but a beautiful red camellia bush next to the steps, the ground hard, barren, old broken bricks and trash looking pretty nasty. Scott and Vern cleaned it up and built flower boxes from treated lumber...
Scott is standing inside a ramp that they built because
the earth was so choppy and uneven I might have broken
my neck out there. It is now so incredible I fairly float
out into the yard...
And yes, you knew that deck was not going to stay a dingy grey with dirty old white doors. I wanted the deck, because it is really big, and in the middle of woods and gardens, to be a beautiful green to blend in with nature, but one can't have everything the same color, so the deck became a green nature deck and the doors into the house were painted the same orchidy purple as the ship and the shed which is just opposite the deck...
This is Coco my cupcake pug surveying her new paradise
from the freshly painted green deck. You can see what it
looked like around the deck before the flower boxes
were put in...
And of course, ahem, the purple doors...
The door with the doggy door goes into my
studio. The other door goes into the garage.
You see one windchime. There are now seven
different types of windchimes all down both
sides of the deck. It is like angel's music when
the breeze blows and all of those studio windows,
down 2 sides of the studio, are open, the fresh air
rinsing the house clean, the whole room, air and
light and music. I adore my little house...
Finally, with money running out for the current building, creating the bones of the first portion of the renovation and building of a garden paradise where only rock hard grass-less dirt had been, the metal corrugated garden shed, just opposite the boat, HAD to be painted. Can you guess what colors???
Corrugated shed primed for the bright colors to come.
You'll note that there was always a pug keeping an eye
on the workmen. Well, you just can't be too careful,
not with these randy hooligans!
And then the shed was painted. Oh what fun!
The pink ties in with the ship and the building was painted
a bright lime green. The green is so much richer and brighter
than would show up in the picture, but yes, to say it's rather
Seussian is not far off. I think Dr. Seuss would have loved it.
Currently I feel like a cross between The Mad Hatter,
Alice in her Wonderland, and The Cat in The Hat!
So there you go, the beginning of the dream. There will be much more to come but just now I am living in unison with the amazing amount of magic that has been created here in roughly six weeks. This next week a truckload of dirt will be delivered for the garden and we will add in manure and compost and bone meal and all manner of wonderful things to enrich the soil and thousands of seeds have arrived or are on their way, plus a few rooted cuttings, such as three Hibiscus Syriacus, 'Bluebird,' cuttings, and my 3 precious Confederate Roses, famous southern flowers, actually a hibiscus (Hibiscus Mutabilis) and please click on the link above to really appreciate this amazing plant. The flowers look like huge roses and go from red to pink to white in their growing cycle...
This image is from the link
in the paragraph just above.
And so in the weeks and months to come you can read here all about the adventures of the making of Mermaid Cove -- the gardens, the mermaids who just do seem to keep gravitating here, and an odd woman surrounded by pugs and parrots and Big Dog Moe, as we revel in our dreams made manifest, or manifesting as we go along...
Warm Regards and Deepest Blessings to All...
An aside... "Maitri at Mermaid Cove ~ Finding Joy Where You Are" is a book in the works and will be published in 2011. It will follow my journey here, as well as hopefully inspire others to bloom where they are planted, and follow their hearts wherever they lead them...
For privacy's sake I will not show pictures of the front of my magical little cottage. As anyone who knows me can tell you I am an extremely private person and it satisfies and comforts me to think that people will pass my little abode and think "nice little house" without ever imagining the magic that is happening behind the six foot privacy fence that encloses a vast area of land with a creek behind it and a magical mermaid paradise. Behind the ordinary is the extraordinary.
I will tell you that if you drove down my street you would see a white brick sort of ranch house but is it an odd shape and not, as the insurance man said, quite what you'd call a traditional ranch, (Well it's ME, duh...). But I will tell you that the front door, shutters, and fancy iron porch posts were all an old forest green, looking quite the worse for the wear, and the attached garage door was a worn, sad looking white. No more. Oh no. That was one of the first things I knew had to change.
I did not know that I would have to put a whole new roof on (shrug...) but it does look wonderful, and now the shutters and iron posts are painted a deep adobe pink, the front door a bright sky blue, and the garage door that same blue with the little ornate area above it adobe pink with the inner lining sky blue. From the street it looks like a different house. Hanging all around the porch are six baskets of flowers, two on either side of the front door eaves and one on each end; purple pansies, burgundy pansies, and gorgeous pink and white trailing geraniums. I shall have to try to get a picture of the flowers against the shutters and posts and garage door without revealing the rest.
Also, if you are looking at the house from the street you can see nothing of what is in back because the six foot high privacy fence starts on the sides near the front of the house and encircles such a large area in the back it could be a vast ocean on which a magic sailing ship might sail the ocean blue (I plan eventually to have the earth plowed all around the ship and plant thousands of forget-me-nots so the ship will actually look as if it is sailing on water. I will also include any and all blue flowers that I can find. What magic! What delight!) Can you not just see it sailing from behind it's hidden cove out onto open waters?
The ship was a rotting mess when I found it. A dingy grey with blue trim, rotting boards, a sad wreck of a ship, but I could only see the possibilities, the incredible magic thing it could be. It was power-washed, all the old and rotting boards removed and replaced, the staircase up to the ship built and when the workmen saw the colors I chose they said something along the lines of, "You're kidding right?" (It's best I leave out most of what they said. Ahem.) But eventually Scott and Vern, my two loyal workers, got into the spirit of the thing, wondering what crazy thing I might do next.
When you walk out the side door from my studio you walked out onto what is a very well built and sturdy as a rock deck. I fell in love with it when I saw it, old trees overhanging it, looking out into the woods, but it just wasn't me. It was a flat grey showing many years of use and could in no way be called attractive. Before I told the workmen I wanted to paint it they said, "Okay, what color is the deck going to be?" And Vern said, "And what color are the doors going to be." Ha ha ha, they knew me by now. Having refurbished and painted my glorious ship that once seemed like the dream of a madwoman, by the time they painted the shed across from the deck they got into the spirit of the thing and started having fun. Here's the shed before I go any further, and by the way it was painted the same color as the originally painted boat, a dingy grey with flaking blue trim and an old nasty roof. It got a new roof too and then got painted. I wanted it to match the ship, and as I go around the yard I use some of the same colors and add in some of the other colors so that there is a flow to the landscape. Here is the shed now opposite my deck...
You can see part of the picket fence
to the left of the shed...
Well, as I said, I am a gardener with more than a little whimsy in my soul, and I have, as Anne of Green Gables would have said, "Great scope for the imagination." I wanted a picket fence garden, and Scott and Vern got right on it...
There is a gate in the front and the whole area has been
weeded and cleaned out. This week the garden dirt will
arrive and whoa nelly! the planting will proceed apace...
Coco, checking on Scott and Vern's work on the garden gate.
It was at first a little cattywompus and they did some work
on it. Frankly, she doesn't trust them any farther than she
can throw them, and a 14 year old grumpy pug is not
someone to mess with...
If you are coming down in from the huge yard where the ship is at the back, this is what you see walking toward the house...
All of the windows down the side of the house are my
studio windows. The natural light in the studio is
breathtaking and the fresh air divine!
There was nothing along the house but a beautiful red camellia bush next to the steps, the ground hard, barren, old broken bricks and trash looking pretty nasty. Scott and Vern cleaned it up and built flower boxes from treated lumber...
Scott is standing inside a ramp that they built because
the earth was so choppy and uneven I might have broken
my neck out there. It is now so incredible I fairly float
out into the yard...
And yes, you knew that deck was not going to stay a dingy grey with dirty old white doors. I wanted the deck, because it is really big, and in the middle of woods and gardens, to be a beautiful green to blend in with nature, but one can't have everything the same color, so the deck became a green nature deck and the doors into the house were painted the same orchidy purple as the ship and the shed which is just opposite the deck...
This is Coco my cupcake pug surveying her new paradise
from the freshly painted green deck. You can see what it
looked like around the deck before the flower boxes
were put in...
And of course, ahem, the purple doors...
The door with the doggy door goes into my
studio. The other door goes into the garage.
You see one windchime. There are now seven
different types of windchimes all down both
sides of the deck. It is like angel's music when
the breeze blows and all of those studio windows,
down 2 sides of the studio, are open, the fresh air
rinsing the house clean, the whole room, air and
light and music. I adore my little house...
Finally, with money running out for the current building, creating the bones of the first portion of the renovation and building of a garden paradise where only rock hard grass-less dirt had been, the metal corrugated garden shed, just opposite the boat, HAD to be painted. Can you guess what colors???
Corrugated shed primed for the bright colors to come.
You'll note that there was always a pug keeping an eye
on the workmen. Well, you just can't be too careful,
not with these randy hooligans!
And then the shed was painted. Oh what fun!
The pink ties in with the ship and the building was painted
a bright lime green. The green is so much richer and brighter
than would show up in the picture, but yes, to say it's rather
Seussian is not far off. I think Dr. Seuss would have loved it.
Currently I feel like a cross between The Mad Hatter,
Alice in her Wonderland, and The Cat in The Hat!
So there you go, the beginning of the dream. There will be much more to come but just now I am living in unison with the amazing amount of magic that has been created here in roughly six weeks. This next week a truckload of dirt will be delivered for the garden and we will add in manure and compost and bone meal and all manner of wonderful things to enrich the soil and thousands of seeds have arrived or are on their way, plus a few rooted cuttings, such as three Hibiscus Syriacus, 'Bluebird,' cuttings, and my 3 precious Confederate Roses, famous southern flowers, actually a hibiscus (Hibiscus Mutabilis) and please click on the link above to really appreciate this amazing plant. The flowers look like huge roses and go from red to pink to white in their growing cycle...
This image is from the linkin the paragraph just above.
And so in the weeks and months to come you can read here all about the adventures of the making of Mermaid Cove -- the gardens, the mermaids who just do seem to keep gravitating here, and an odd woman surrounded by pugs and parrots and Big Dog Moe, as we revel in our dreams made manifest, or manifesting as we go along...
Warm Regards and Deepest Blessings to All...
An aside... "Maitri at Mermaid Cove ~ Finding Joy Where You Are" is a book in the works and will be published in 2011. It will follow my journey here, as well as hopefully inspire others to bloom where they are planted, and follow their hearts wherever they lead them...
2 comments:
I love it!!! Go Maitri! I can feel how happy you are in your new spot. I love the colors and that you have plenty of room to play in. I can't wait to see the pictures of your cottage garden so I can show Chad how I want our place landscaped!
Isn't it nice to have your own place in which to do with it whatever you want??? I think it would be great to leave the front of your house plain and then have this magical world in the back--away from anyone else's line of vision--to make it more of a "secret garden". Have fun!!
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