Sometimes I feel like my brain is too full and that some adjustments like defragging my hard drive are in order to make it more effective. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had a button we could just push that would more effectively organize everything? I need one of those sometimes I think my mind is a hopeless mess. I just feel like I have too many programs running at once. Some people might think it is nice to have an event packed day but I think there is a limit to the amount of stimulation the body and mind can handle. Sometimes the only answer is to sleep on it and try to process all that you have learned from the packed day. Today felt like one of those, it was non stop I did so much and learned so much. I had many conversations and participated in many activities if I am going to keep going on like this I will need a faster processing chip.
I recently returned from a trip to California, the Sacramento area. It was lovely and I had a great time visiting dear friends and new friends. It almost does not seem real to think once more I was in a place where once I was a missionary. So many memories came back, I recalled streets and houses, shops and landmarks. How interesting it is that I can totally forget certain things yet upon returning I remember. I saw parts of old Sacramento which is something I have never done. Such a new adventure is memorable. Walking down old looking streets and seeing many little shops, shops of candy, of chocolate, antiques, cloths and what not got my imagination running. I tried to imagine what it might have been like a hundreds years ago, I mean it would not have had a lot of the shops but many of the buildings are the same. It reminds me of how
in one neighbrhood I lived back in Topeka Kansas, there were several old houses. One was a little yellow house, the people said it was built in 1890 and was a farm house. All the land round about belonged to the people who lived in the house. My brother and me know it is as the house with the secret garden. Like in the book The Secret Garden, it had been neglected for a long time, its garden was not a walled in one like that of the book but it was a garden. On the side of the house were the twisting branches of several apple trees which grew haphazardly after years of neglect. I wondered if it was part of a large orchard that had once extended some distance. there was no way to tell now, just the few trees remained bearing fruit. In the front yard grew two large chestnut trees with the richest fruit. I took a lot of time studying attempting to determine their origin, I thought they were American chestnut or at least a hybrid their leaves and flavor did not match that of the other varieties. As far as it is known all the America chestnut trees were wiped out by a blight. A real live American chestnut would be a find indeed. I never pursued it enough to find out and I pretty sure the trees have been cut back now. I makes me said perhaps because I like the past and think of things gone by. This house reminded me somehow, it was like a piece of the living past solid and visible in front of me. It even had a chicken coop in the backyard. I think the garden the garden is what fascinated me. along the fence ran grape vines that produced small purple grapes and red ones. They were not all that nice to eat but still quite pretty to look at.Then there were the flowers that came up in the spring time, they were a surprise. When walking in the backyard of the house we noticed the small shoots of green. there were daffodils, tulips, and snowdrops and then irises in May. Oh the Irises they were amazing every color and type imaginable and oh how sweet they smelled, like lemon, and orange, grape and peach. My other transplanted some of them into our garden, which is a good thing, the mower man did not know them from weeds. How I loved that garden a garden left to ruin. It was also said that the house was haunted that the old man had died there and still walked the halls and that was why it was empty for so long. They also said that the wife had been a kind women who gave cookies to the children in the neighborhood even after her husband died. Others say that she was a witch and the cookies where poisoned or a way to get the children into the house from where they would not return. Such were the rumors we all heard and shared in our young minds. I tend to believe that the first was right and she was just lonely and enjoyed the visits of the children. Either way the house and its garden draw me still. I have affixed in my mind an image of it one I wish to preserve because in so doing I will capture something of how I was and how it was because I know it will not remain the same but will soon fail, rot or the trees be torn down, but perhaps if with words I can help it to still leave someone else can feel the wonder and magic I felt.
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