The first time you came to supper was back in the fall of '05. I remember hustling home early so I could knock down some the growth that was still, after a summer's worth of work, spilling out over the rockery. My coworker asked me the next day how my gardening turned out. I told her it was a work in progress. Still seems to be the case.
After all this time I still don't think of myself as being much of a gardener. I've lived in my house now for over ten years and still think of my yard layout as pretty much being far from finished. But I've put in the hours over the years, shifting this, planting that, building things, and after all this time I must say that when it's spruced up, watered down and mowed it looks good and that pleases me very much.
Nevertheless I still have a lot to learn. I have rose bushes below the kitchen window that bloom nicely in the summertime, but the light is wrong in the afternoons and they tend to get that strange frosty mildew on them. I plant dahilas every summer but fail to dig them up in the fall and so wee critters tend to eat them come winter and I have to start all over again the following year. I have planted vegetable starts in the past and have been marginally successful with those, but I've felt that the effort fighting off bugs all summer didn't yield much for the investment in time so I've pursued an easier course of action and have sown flower seeds instead. I can handle flower seeds just fine.
I do like flowers, even painted ones. I collect artwork that pleases me, and enjoy finding art by local artists. I tend to find pieces as I troll second hands and galleries, so I know that what I've collected isn't worth much except to me. I have this one piece up on a wall right now, an oil painting of blooming rhodies. I placed it in the hallway last winter when I needed that touch of spring and now it's right on time. My rhodies, most of which came with the house, are in full flower. I have two in the back that need to be transplanted, and that will happen once I finish clearing out the old ivy that's taken over the hill.
This year my life seems to be blooming, too, not too much unlike the flowers in my garden. I know that real life has taken over once again and that I have no more time to grieve. I spent three years getting over you, which was compounded with the return of The Estranged One, then the passing of my mom. When that email box of mine as left open last fall and all my letters to you were discovered I thought I was well past the point of caring. But life crashed hard and I found out the hard way that I still did care, cared an awful lot. It took clearing out that house to finally make good on all those old accounts, all those ledgers filled with unfinished, unexamined emotions, with untold hurts and stories and such. I emptied myself out and finally found bottom and let me tell you, it felt good.
Maybe "bottom" is the wrong word to describe the place where I landed. I think I finally found that place in life where I could utter the words "life's okay" and feel good about saying it. I think that the timing of that project and the release of unnecessary entanglements and my reinvestment in people who matter all came about because I finally could do it. I didn't have that desire to grow in me before. I wasn't ready, not too much unlike those dried dahlia tubers I've seen circulating around the branch these last couple of weeks. Those tubers represent a sparkling new life, but a life that needs good soil in order to take root. After that little house project was done I started in on other things. The completion of that house project was like sinking one of those tubers into furtile soil. Everything took off after that. The bloom is on it's way.
So I rediscovered the fine art of sweating about the same time that I realized I had a garden that needed tending to. I took all the energy that I gained from clearing out all that old stuff, realized from all the scrubbing and painting and shifting, and took it outside and began my garden work anew. I tore out knee high weeds, clipped away old vines, gathered together bags of soil and bought a ton of seed. I also gathered together old and new friends about me. Planted a bushel basket's worth of life that seem to be already yielding fresh and inviting new opportunities. I see the sprouts of new beginnings tenderly pushing their way out of the soil. My heart is already soaring and it's only June!
But I have to admit that I recognize this elation about my new life. It's a great feeling, like the way a warm day feels after a long, cool spring. Back in '05 I fought hard to start my life anew. Maybe it was too soon, but it felt right at the time. And it did start, that's for sure. It sprouted up there between us, back in September of '05, during that field trip we took to Sumner, the one where we were in search of that cast iron Scotty lamp you saw when your sister was in town. We stopped along the way and walked Connell's garden together that Saturday afternoon. We stood quietly in a row of dahlias, side by side, close in, then turned and held each other and gasped, gasped at the beauty around us, swooned at adaciousness of the bold encounter. That moment, that brief second when you looked into my eyes, when we took in each other's souls, we planted something that day that has continued to grow over the years, even through those times when winter seems to stretch on forever.
Nevertheless I still have a lot to learn. I have rose bushes below the kitchen window that bloom nicely in the summertime, but the light is wrong in the afternoons and they tend to get that strange frosty mildew on them. I plant dahilas every summer but fail to dig them up in the fall and so wee critters tend to eat them come winter and I have to start all over again the following year. I have planted vegetable starts in the past and have been marginally successful with those, but I've felt that the effort fighting off bugs all summer didn't yield much for the investment in time so I've pursued an easier course of action and have sown flower seeds instead. I can handle flower seeds just fine.
I do like flowers, even painted ones. I collect artwork that pleases me, and enjoy finding art by local artists. I tend to find pieces as I troll second hands and galleries, so I know that what I've collected isn't worth much except to me. I have this one piece up on a wall right now, an oil painting of blooming rhodies. I placed it in the hallway last winter when I needed that touch of spring and now it's right on time. My rhodies, most of which came with the house, are in full flower. I have two in the back that need to be transplanted, and that will happen once I finish clearing out the old ivy that's taken over the hill.
This year my life seems to be blooming, too, not too much unlike the flowers in my garden. I know that real life has taken over once again and that I have no more time to grieve. I spent three years getting over you, which was compounded with the return of The Estranged One, then the passing of my mom. When that email box of mine as left open last fall and all my letters to you were discovered I thought I was well past the point of caring. But life crashed hard and I found out the hard way that I still did care, cared an awful lot. It took clearing out that house to finally make good on all those old accounts, all those ledgers filled with unfinished, unexamined emotions, with untold hurts and stories and such. I emptied myself out and finally found bottom and let me tell you, it felt good.
Maybe "bottom" is the wrong word to describe the place where I landed. I think I finally found that place in life where I could utter the words "life's okay" and feel good about saying it. I think that the timing of that project and the release of unnecessary entanglements and my reinvestment in people who matter all came about because I finally could do it. I didn't have that desire to grow in me before. I wasn't ready, not too much unlike those dried dahlia tubers I've seen circulating around the branch these last couple of weeks. Those tubers represent a sparkling new life, but a life that needs good soil in order to take root. After that little house project was done I started in on other things. The completion of that house project was like sinking one of those tubers into furtile soil. Everything took off after that. The bloom is on it's way.
So I rediscovered the fine art of sweating about the same time that I realized I had a garden that needed tending to. I took all the energy that I gained from clearing out all that old stuff, realized from all the scrubbing and painting and shifting, and took it outside and began my garden work anew. I tore out knee high weeds, clipped away old vines, gathered together bags of soil and bought a ton of seed. I also gathered together old and new friends about me. Planted a bushel basket's worth of life that seem to be already yielding fresh and inviting new opportunities. I see the sprouts of new beginnings tenderly pushing their way out of the soil. My heart is already soaring and it's only June!
But I have to admit that I recognize this elation about my new life. It's a great feeling, like the way a warm day feels after a long, cool spring. Back in '05 I fought hard to start my life anew. Maybe it was too soon, but it felt right at the time. And it did start, that's for sure. It sprouted up there between us, back in September of '05, during that field trip we took to Sumner, the one where we were in search of that cast iron Scotty lamp you saw when your sister was in town. We stopped along the way and walked Connell's garden together that Saturday afternoon. We stood quietly in a row of dahlias, side by side, close in, then turned and held each other and gasped, gasped at the beauty around us, swooned at adaciousness of the bold encounter. That moment, that brief second when you looked into my eyes, when we took in each other's souls, we planted something that day that has continued to grow over the years, even through those times when winter seems to stretch on forever.
And even though you took on that job tending the soil in your own backyard again, I still reap the benefits of that long ago moment and have allowed that wonder to continue to grow in the furtile imagination of my heart. Yeah, I told you up front I wasn't much of a gardener. A romantic, yes, a cook, certainly, but a gardener? Well, we'll work on that. And so until then, till that day when I once again see you standing there at my garden gate with your watering can and shovel I'll continue to mow and weed and hoe and look for happiness within the walls of my own garden, within the fenced yard of my own life.
And M? Let me tell you, for the first time in a very long time, I am happy.
Thank you, my love, for sowing those seeds that continue to grow in my heart.
Your WHMB
And M? Let me tell you, for the first time in a very long time, I am happy.
Thank you, my love, for sowing those seeds that continue to grow in my heart.
Your WHMB
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