Labyrinths and Wildflowers

I have been appreciating now more than ever the quiet, the stillness-- inside of me, around me. I really feel the place where I live, Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago, more and more. It has definitely started to feel like home-- although I still don't know what that word means. Where is my "home," the place I can always go back to?

I tried to walk the old faded, cracked labyrinth in Nichols Park. Kids can be so mean; I've known this from a very young age. So again, after many years, I found myself afraid of playground judgment by two little kids trying to catch and/or kill a tiny swarm of monarchs. I wanted to go over and gently tell them how special those butterflies are and that you can tell because they're orange and black. And that they're dying, and it's up to us to save them. But I didn't. I was worried their parents would balk at the crazy blonde girl walking in circles talking to their children. I wish I could have had the labyrinth in even more quiet and solitude, so that I could have figured out how to walk it.

I went through the wildflower path, feeling more than ever my connection with these delicate, fleeting seasonal blooms, never bought and sold or found in stores, not worth much to anyone but me and people like me. I've dreamed of going up to the abandoned hillside on Lake Park some quiet dusky evening, carefully taking our old pair of scissors to some of the abundant purple chicory, white Queen Anne's Lace, and yellow mustard blossoms.

I may be needing the quiet, but I knew the music would be here in the park today, like it is every Sunday in the summer. Hasn't started yet though, I don't know if it will begin by the time I head back home to finish the laundry and start dinner. I struggle between the heat and the humidity and the sleepiness and the moment. Isn't this why I walked this way? But maybe the timing wasn't right.