If you follow the rules of fashion religiously, you probably have chosen Labor Day as the day you take all the white items in your closet to a storage facility where they will wait until Memorial Day.
After all, it’s one of the oldest rules in the book: “Thou shalt not wear white after Labor Day.”
The other inevitability is that all those wonderful pleasures you dug from your garden are soon coming to an end. The days shorten. The sunlight turns cold. The black-eyed Susans brown and fade. And the joys of fiddleheads, garlic scapes and a ribbon snake or two are relegated to seed catalogs and a lone thrush pecking at the suet feeder.
You long to bring the garden in.
This year I did just that. But I digress…
The Arts Program at Astor Services for Children and Families has been for years a favorite of the children, well loved and remarkable for the quality of the art and craft produced.
And nowhere is it more evident (for me at least) than in the wind chimes I bought this year for my garden. Aside from the obvious care that went onto their craft, the chimes speak to me much the way my garden does ¬in a voice that soothes and nurtures. Chimes after all with their association of cathedrals and bell towers are full of meaning, an interruption to the silence, a soft and gentle call, moved by the wind.
I can only imagine how its making, or rather how the entire arts program at Astor calms, soothes and encourages the children. It gives them a voice, rouses their creative spirit and
ensures that the mission of Astor – that every child deserves a childhood – is fulfilled.
And so the chimes will come inside with me from the garden along with the houseplants and a few stray spiders. Reminders all of the surprises and pleasures of the fading summer garden you’ve tended and nurtured for the last few months… and the children fostered by Astor Services.