Today, like many summer days, starts in the fog – collecting nasturtiums seeds, prodding the ripe ones with fingertips to fall, letting them drop into my palms, a beautiful tactile sensation. They’ll be collected and dried. Or right away I throw them like a child all over my very spread-out terraced yard. This way they will re-appear next February in all kinds of shades of red, orange, yellow. Their faces a plain color, or adorned with contrasting stripes, dots or streaks – so inventive in their variations – make the whole garden explode into smiles and palpable joy for months.

But by July the plentiful nasturtium plants – cascading, meandering up to 15 feet and intertwined ­– are wilting, drying, ready to reseed. Between drizzling fog at night, hot sizzling sun, and me not watering because of drought, I have to now embrace a different feel and look of my backyard. To visitors I try to describe the abundance just a couple of weeks ago – but in vain, it’s gone. Imagine, I say, but how could they.

Change – so all pervasive, and so difficult for us as humans to participate in, allow and comprehend. Nature and the seasons teach us, and yet we feel we are exempt, till some big change, like an injury, death or loss makes us feel suddenly fragile. But then renewal offers its solace – magical and mysterious. All and everything changes.