June 13, 2022 – The joys (and challenges) of being on a book tour

I have traveled to so many wonderful communities across the southeast to share my book with friends, old and new. I am quite certain that the two I did in June will always stand out because they were both warm and welcoming and yet so very different.

On the 4th of June, I did an author’s talk at the Old Orchard Creek General Store in Lansing, NC. I can attest that this is a small mountain town with a BIG heart and lots of energy! Walter Clark is the owner but you can tell what a special person he is by the way his community respects and adores him. Sherri and Jason Miller joined me there so that Jason could read one of his poems from my book. That Jason so graciously allowed me to publish two of his poems means the world to me.

Sherri, Jason and Walter at the blueberry house on the farm. At the end of June, go pick some blueberries!

What an incredible view with Old Orchard Creek gurgling below us.

The view from our cabin deck which was covered in mountain clematis, soon to explode in white bloom.

As I drove home through the town of West Jefferson, I saw this incredible mural painted by my dear friend Robert Johnson, who has sadly left this earth all too soon. Thank you Robert for the beauty you added to this world.

I gratefully had five days at home to tend to Devotion. I discovered a rascally groundhog burrowing along the courtyard boulder wall.

So, Lewis Owenby to the rescue as he filled the gaps between the boulders with smaller rocks. Now the groundhog can move on out.

And after that melodrama, the nerves were rattled so I did what I always do….go out with a camera to see what’s happening.

The Alabama azalea has such a sweet scent…and I appreciate its later bloom.

Monada “Jacob Kline’ explodes like fourth of July fireworks! The hummingbirds adore it.

Asclepias variegata, white milkweed, for adult monarch butterflies.

Astilbe ‘Bridal Veil’ throughout the courtyard garden.

Then on June 11 I was at the Sara P. Duke Gardens for Breakfast in the Blooms. What an honor to be invited back to my alma mater to talk about the book. The Duke Campus is worlds apart from Lansing, NC, but both places really speak to my soul. And oh how the gardens have grown in scale and scope since I was an undergraduate in 1970!

The Virtual Peace Pond with water lilies.

The romantic white garden with Annabelle hydrangeas.

Flowering nicotiana, the tobacco that created an empire.

The Japanese garden is a wonderful place to sit in the shade and enjoy the collection of Japanese maples.

The Historic Gardens are where Duke Gardens began in 1934. This ionic Italianate-style Terrace Garden recalled so many memories from my undergraduate days.

Fountains and sculptures are beautifully placed throughout the 55 acres.

There are 5 miles of walkways, allees, and paths throughout.

Doris Duke Center where I talked about DEVOTION to a warm and welcoming audience.

Nothing says summer like Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Blue Bird’ and Japanese painted fern.

The 6.5 acre Blomquist Garden of Native Plants is filled with more than 900 species and varieties of regional native plants. Many of them found a home in this garden after an approved plant-rescue operation from land facing development. I particularly loved the carnivorous plant collection because I had just taken a zoom class about these plants earlier in the week.

Sarracenia (pitcher plants) and flowering Venus fly traps.

A dear friend, Norris Barnes, told me about a book titled Bittersweet by Susan Cain. I want to share her sentiments with you: “There is a melancholic direction in life I call “bittersweet”: a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.” That sums up so perfectly what I have been feeling these days.