Repotting these flowers in our home was tiring but gave me so much joy. I suppose this time I succeeded in exerting myself physically for beauty’s sake without damaging my health. It was a tremendous “win” that boosted my spirit, enhanced the look of our house and invigorated the feel in our home. I believe that, through many physical and emotional struggles throughout winter and spring, I finally achieved a sustainable sense of renewal by the end of this spring. It is fitting that my eventual triumph would be marked by the presence of flowers which are among my most beloved temporal things.
Winter 2025 started joyfully with absolutely no foreboding of the heart-breaking unfolding of events that was to come. D and I had fun browsing through the Stillwater Antique Mall to look for Christmas lights, ornaments and decorations. Our favorite finds were the singing dolls. For our Christmas tree, we had one fresh tree cut down at the Lockwood Christmas tree farm in Greenville near home.
We had a typically cold, stormy and snowy New England winter in January, February and March 2026. As befits the gloomy weather and desolate landscape, my emotional life was bleak and tumultuous. D and I had marriage troubles and I worked so hard to try to work out what went wrong and how to save our family from disintegration. It was for me a winter of despair.
Early spring was still very cold and windy, and my life still felt unsettled as I continued to have health and other problems after both D and I had succeeded in saving our marriage. There were some moments, however, when I felt briefly consoled by the beauty of nature. Some evenings were enlivened by stunning sunsets and the faithful moon.
After a traumatic and exhausting winter and early spring, I became depressed and severely anxious. As per my tradition every time I felt physically exhausted and emotionally helpless, I turned to God and consecrated religious people for help. I went to Portsmouth Abbey in April for a retreat. There, so as to uplift my heart to God, I joined the monks at Lauds, Mass, Midday Prayers, Vespers and Compline. To sooth the wounds in my spirit, I sat on a rock at Narragansett Bay for one whole morning. I also visited the cemetery to cry and lament at Father Paschal’s tomb. I tried to commune with God and nature anytime I could during my short stay at Portsmouth Abbey.
We came to Portsmouth Abbey for Mass after spring has reached its peak in floral glory and has imperceptibly begun its descent. At Portsmouth Abbey School, the students had already left for their summer holiday and we had the campus to ourselves for roaming around and taking photos. One of the most glorious spring flowers is indubitably rhododendron, and in nowhere else had we found more massive bushes of rhododendron than at Portsmouth Abbey.
Now spring is gradually giving way to summer. Here are some images of the early morning sun in late spring. I love waking up early in the morning and go down to the verdant lawn and misty lake to inhale the fresh morning air and feel the early morning sunshine on my skin. One time I even spotted an enormous snap turtle under the small Japanese maple tree in the front lawn of our townhouse complex. I saw me watching and started retreating back to the lake. I excitedly followed it down the stairs and even made a video of it going into the lake.
In this day and age, almost 11 years of working in one place is a moderately lengthy amount of time. D worked as a financial advisor for Edward Jones Investments (Edward Jones for short) first in Lexington and then Campbellsville, Kentucky, between January 2014 until November 2024. This job was his first ever business job in the financial industry and the beginning of a phase of our life together as a more settled family with two children in tow.
When we just had one child, J1, and when he was younger than school age, we were mostly hanging out together and definitely not serious about the family finance. Being in our late 20s and with only one small child, we were still young lovers and dreamers who enjoyed traveling, spending money and going out late at night after J1’s bedtime. The arrival of our second child, J2, in our early 30s and having J1 in elementary school helped us become more aware of our family’s material needs, educational opportunities as well as our children’s future with respect to financial stability.
D had an arduous beginning at Edward Jones because he had to find his own clients… on foot. Edward Jones prided themselves on placing their advisors in branch offices located in small residential areas where the advisors go out to meet local residents to offer their investment services. Thus at Edward Jones, traditional prospecting was also called “door-knocking” because the financial advisors found their clients by going out to prospective clients’ houses and try to obtain business by using creditable first impressions, personable communication and persistent following up through phone calls.
Through a hard beginning and a multitude of challenges, D learned on the job to persevere and push on in spite of rejections and setbacks on a daily basis. He eventually learned to handle clients’ investments skillfully with the help of more experienced colleagues within the firm. As a family, we participated in some of Edward Jones’ communal activities and got to know some other people and families who were doing the same thing. D was growing his career steadily for a while and we thought we had found a solid, family-focused and trustworthy company to be with for the long term.
However, not too long after our family joined Edward Jones, they turned to the dark side and became evil. They decided to expand and increase exponentially and rapidly the number of their advisors and branch offices across the country so as to gain more market share and generate more profits. Evil Edward Jones Investments thus became a bloated organization in a very short time with a greedy corporate culture and managerial headaches coupled with technological challenges. Growth and change come with growing pain, and exponential growth comes with rapid changes and excessive needs for adjustment. The result was that after major organizational restructuring and fast-paced value shifting to facilitate super-fast expansion, Edward Jones was never the same family-oriented, people-centered and value-focused Midwestern financial firm our family had joined. Edward Jones simply became evil Edward Jones.
I wrote this for my husband, David, who has been with me through thick and thin for over 25 years. Our friendship and marriage are the best things that have happened to me in my adult life.
I may not know what love is A philosopher calls it "friendship set to music" A writer calls it "a winged bird" that soars I am contemplating my own definition of this eternally elusive but also the most beautiful thing. I know that my admiration for you is boundless, that my respect for you profound. I have had the front-row seat to witnessing how much you have cared, worked and sacrificed for me, us and humanity. Oh, how I wish for only good things for us! I wish that we would always walk together through pleasant meadows filled with pretty wildflowers. I wish that we would always sail together on calm sea with favorable wind. I wish that we would always exist in the light. Alas, it is not so, my love! At times, our love is like a delicate flower trying to survive in a rocky terrain in hellish weather that bends to destroy every living thing, or like a fragile small bird struggling to find food in the dead of winter, or like a stumbling creature in such despairing darkness that he sees naught and has naught to hold on to. Sorry that I have focused too much on the darkness, that I have dwelled too long in my own pains To show you how deeply I care about you and all your struggles, about us, our home and our family. To show you that I am still your girl I'm still that girl that danced with you on that small piece of newspaper in Chukamol, who chooses to stay every single time she feels like running away. I know, by nature, I'm not patient, but I cannot help how I am made. I am still that girl who walked with you by the sea on our first date. I have always cared about you and all your struggles And I will keep caring, For I am still your girl who wants to follow you around everywhere.
Bold, Slow and Intentional 