Angels in my garden

Yesterday I decided to go out for a short walk -- just up to our neighbors' home and back -- and when I came back to my front door I discovered that sometime in the last week or so some kind soul has added a pair of angels to my garden table.

I use the word "garden" loosely here, as the several attempts we've made over the years to create a garden in this sandy yard of ours have always been overcome by the combined evils of high tides and my laziness. I had hoped that the green thumb I had before my daughters were born would return after they left for college, but so far there has been no sign of it. I am therefore totally humbled by the pictures sent to me recently by a friend who moved to Maine a year ago and in so short a space of time has created a garden wondrous enough to be included on her local garden tour.

Suffice it to say that the dune grass and fennel have won yet again this year, and it was easier to add a fountain than it was to get anything else to grow. There's a little wrought-iron table and chairs outside our kitchen window, just to break up the monotony of it, and it was there that these two angels stood, masked from the kitchen view by the terracotta head that sits on the tabletop.

Inspired by a letter announcing I had won awards for some of the manipulated images I've been developing this year, I spent some time yesterday creating this new image from several layers: the base is a stream inside the Vancouver airport, and over it lie grasses from a retreat center on the Hood Canal, a moonrise shot from my front deck, part of a palm from a Florida garden, and a sunset over St. Petersburg.

It's possible the angel doesn't belong in this image, but I'm leaving her there for now as a way of sharing -- remember the old Doublemint commercial? -- "Two, Two, Two gifts in one!" Somehow, at least for now, the gift of the angels is inseparable from the healing process, which is inseparable from the joy of exploring a new image: it's all a rich tapestry of gratitude.

So tell me, Gentle Reader: Which of you left me these lovely gifts? I treasure them, and thank you from the bottom of my heart!