Posted by Loulou on Apr 30, 2014 | 4 comments

You know, for years, when mama was growing up, she loved that hour between sunset and full night that is often called the twilight hour. She used to play with the kids in the neigbborhood until dinner time and the air was sweet and silky, especially in spring and summer, and someone had mowed a lawn and there were grassy smells and earth smells as rich as food.

I know just what she means, because as our spring gets warmer and I can stay in the garden later in the afternoon, I see that magic hour approaching, sneaking its way over the vineyards and through the pine trees and slithering into our neighbor’s garden and then it sidles up the wall between ours and his and starts slowly spreading itself over the new, lovely Rond de Nice squash plant and the not so lovely compost pile (!) and up the trunk of our bountiful lemon tree and over the salmon-colored gravel that the garden designer wanted to make into a Zen garden, but didn’t, and the stones on our patio are warm and inviting and the straw that mama spreads on the plants is perfect to roll around in, and there I am. A twilight kitty in my domain.

That hour is special, says mama. When she gardens at that hour, new thoughts come to her and she ruminates (love that word) on whatever pops into her twilight mood. Sometimes it’s deep thoughts about life and death and of course, me, and sometimes it’s just thinking about the artichokes simmering on the stove in their garlic and mint and how good they are going to taste and sometimes it’s about the little sweeties/grandkids in Rome who will be here in summer to sit in our little garden and watch the twilight appear the way mama does.

Once, long ago, mama lived in a house that had a window by her bed, and she could watch the twilight slowly, slowly give way to a deep blue sky that as she watched, filled with little diamonds and sometimes a tiny lemon sliver of moon. Is childhood special, or what?

I’m so glad that I’m still a young kitty who can appreciate that magic hour when all the world seems to stop and just be.

I think I’ll just be, too.

JUST BEING….