Sunday 28 June 2015

Brace Update 1: Treatment Salon

Her arms and thighs are bruised from Humatrope injections
Treatment Salon is open July, June, Thursday, all kinds of days, and September. Can I give you the treatment?

I hadn't intended on receiving a treatment. I had only wanted to ensure her hair was properly washed; she is only 8, and she has a lot of hair.

The Treatment begins with a back wash, using a sizable slice of gorgeously smelly soap - given to her by three enraptured sales clerks at a recent visit to Lush. We had gone there to purchase gifts for friends in Tokyo.

It wasn't busy, and they were following her as she transversed the store, soberly smelling every sample, and occasionally offering brief, decisive comments: Good! So-so (with horizontal wobble of the hand). Woohoo; that's bad! The staff weighed in on favourite scents and products. One gave her an arm massage: she was pleased. The second attempted to impress her with a suds-making demonstration: she was gracious. The third indulgently endured a lengthy series of semi-personal questions: Do you have a dog? Do you have a fish? Do you have a mother? Do you have a sister? Is she nice? Does she work here?

To give her the soap was a unanimous decision. She sniffed it deeply, thanked them, and we left. Within steps she spied the next befriending opportunity, and was off: Hi-can-I-pat-your-dog?

I float in the background of these conversations, enjoying her pure gregariousness - devoid of artifice, or any agenda other than to connect with dogs and people, and to smell things. She loves to smell things. She confirms things by their smell: flowers in the neighbourhood; product in the hair; food in the store. She sniffs the cutting board: Watch the knife! She sniffs the pan: Get your face away from the stove! She regularly sniffs me, sidling up as though to hug me, but never quite; just holding her nose very, very close. Complete stillness; only the scent exists. She is truly in the moment... until I shatter that moment with an uninvited hug.

Her hugs! I just don't get enough! Short, squeezy ones, our whole bodies squashed deliciously together - her crazy hair in my face.  Or slow, drapey ones, after dinner, on my chair, her cheek on mine, eyes closed. I sigh her name. She sighs back. Her hugs are blissful - and rare.

Not symmetrical - the brace over-corrects the curve,
pushing it back the opposite direction
For me, this has been the biggest impact of her wearing the scoliosis brace. Her hugs – when they come - are no longer huggy; they are rigid and bumpy and hard. Snuggling and wrestling with her can cause bruising! I look forward to the one hour each day we remove her brace, hoping for the opportunity for an un-armoured hug. When part-way through her shampoo she offered me the Treatment, of course I stepped into her salon! And she was sharing her special soap - this would be Treatment, indeed.

The substantial lathering is followed by a delicate scrub with an abrasive, pink cloth. Next: scratching fingers - soft and quick and just enough on the raspy side of ticklish to be delightful. This has the added bonus of softening the filth under her fingernails, an on-going issue for a girl who loves worms, making potions from garden plants, water and soil, and wearing polish on long nails.

Rinse, dry off, clean nails, put on special undershirt and brace, have injection, brush teeth. We retire to her bed, where treatment continues with a skiff of coconut oil, and ends, eyes closed, smiling, with us tangled together like two sleeping cats in a basket.

I extricate myself carefully, her undershirt-clad chest slowly falling, then rising to the confines of the body jacket: greenish-gray, 101-Dalmatian-printed, Velcro-secured. From a distance it looks like a slightly wonky, calico-print corset, stretching from pits to tailbone, trussed up in front. It wouldn't look out of place with a can-can skirt. It's even kind of cute. She thinks so, too.

I am delighted and relieved that, after the initial weeks of sore, itchy, red, dry skin, uncomfortable tightness, worrying that classmates might tease, and sadness, she has taken to wearing the brace just fine. Better than fine: one recent bedtime, all three special, seamless undershirts being still in the dryer, she became very upset at the suggestion she sleep without it: Don't you know that my back is growing at night, and I have to wear it every night? Every single night! She's committed, with all her might.

I kiss her eyes and cheeks, stare at her dignified, sleeping face and plan a Treatment Salon of my own: it will start with a trip to someplace full of wonderfully-scented samples for her to sniff, and end, I hope, with a jumble of legs and arms and a happy, slumbering, extraordinary girl. This time she gets the treatment.

Saturday 27 June 2015

Garden 4: Maryjane

A little smoothie, then a swing
Tonight, in the garden, watering with my new, awesome nozzle; my daughter swinging on her rusting, hand-me-down swing set: Mummy, did I come out of your belly, or your vagina?

Funny thing: though we have always referred to my son's privates by their proper name (never Doodie, Peter, Long-John Tiddlywacker nor Wee Willie Winkie), inexplicably, my husband and I have taken to calling our daughter's bits by the name my mother, her mother, my sister, my aunts and all my female cousins on my mother's side know it: Maryjane. Accent on the 1st syllable.

Don't worry: I'm not going to tell you I grew up thinking it was actually called a Maryjane; I was well aware the real name sounds a lot like a city in Saskatchewan. But I thought everybody else knew what a Maryjane was, too.

It baffled me: who, I used to wonder, would name their child Maryjane? And the shoes! Tee hee hee!

When I was 30-something I finally figured it out: they didn't laugh because they didn't know! All that time I'd been talking about my Maryjane, and folks had no clue...! That explained a lot.

What happened was, my sister and I were having a rare visit on a mall bench, when past us walked a young woman, midriff bared, wearing low-riding sweatpants imprinted across the backside with "Bum". You've see the ones.

"Should write "Maryjane" on the front," I snorted. To which my sister burst out, "Did you know no-one else calls it a "Maryjane?!!"

"What?!!!"

My world changed, forever separating events into one of two time periods: pre or post Maryjane. I commenced calling it what, these days, you're supposed to: the one that rhymes with Regina.

It was my husband who first transgressed, six years later, shortly after our daughter came home from hospital, at one month of age; he was changing her diaper and the word just came out. A look was exchanged, and the family tradition resumed - at least in private.

I don't feel so bad about it, now that she's proven she knows what it's really called. We don't seem to have done her a disservice, just as we don't seem to have done our son any huge favour by using only the medical term: he has, without our help, come up with a whole list of alternative names for his penis.

It's just another family word: we watch TV in the limner, eat peentybut cuuties, ask for our scot-bwot with a wat-cwot and make sure we wash our Maryjane. Silly words that only our family would use, that connect the generations together with a common, if not silly, bond.

Final note: in the BC mining village in which I grew up, there was a family with two kids, named - get this - Maryjane and Peter! My sister and I wondered what was wrong with their parents!

Garden 14:  Harvest
Garden 13: Abandoned Stuff, Things of Beauty
Garden 12: Death and Potential
Garden 11: Japanese Maple Tree and Sedum (?)
Garden 10: Foxglove and Weed Digger
Garden 9: Veggies and Sweet Pea 
Garden 8: Gnomes and Slugs
Garden 7: The Lady Next Door
Garden 6: Euphorbia and Rusted, Metal Things
Garden 5: Cement Bench and Wallflower
Garden 3: Family Portrait
Garden 2: The Neighbours'
Garden 1: Lilac Bush and Abandoned Cans

Friday 19 June 2015

Garden 3: Family Portrait

Not about the garden, but it takes place there.
Lego homage to my son's favourite dubstep artist, Sonny John Moore, AKA Skrillex
The one thing I ever stole in my life (on purpose) was a 2X4 piece of yellow Lego. I took it from the house of a friend, hidden in my sock. It hurt my ankle a little, and rubbed my conscience a little more, but replacing it seemed impossibly risky. And then we moved.
It's love

There's not much you can do with one piece of Lego, regardless of the size or colour. My parents would surely have been more than happy to provide me with some, had they known, but I didn't ask, and they didn't guess. That lone block travelled with us from house to house and town to town to town to city, useless as only one piece of Lego can be. It ended up in a box of donations. I wish I had kept it just a few years longer; I would have given it to my son. Many of his sweetest gifts to me have been made of Lego.

Which brings me to vacuum cleaner bags. I admit it: I sift them when they're full. It's the Lego! I know it's in there, and I can't bear to throw it out! Classic Lego, or Lego Friends - all over the world, where there's a vacuum cleaner and imagination, there's Lego.
Can my house be that filthy?
It's not a job I look forward to - the puffed up, surprisingly weighty bag might sit on the back porch for months before I get to it - but nary a sift occurs that I'm not glad I did it. 

Three days ago, during a session of "To the End of the Yard and Back" (an after-dinner exercise in which my family and I attempt to get from the kitchen, to the alley and back to the house, while engaging in appropriate social interaction), I deftly orchestrated the first family sift. I have been steadily working to hand over to them the jobs my family is capable of doing for themselves. Rescuing aspirated Lego was next on the list. 

I expected mass disgust and outright refusal, but it went surprisingly well. Sitting in the grass, I showed them how to slash a big X in the bag with the kitchen scissors (NOT! my sewing shears!), revealing the contents: a detailed, if dirty, portrait of our family. 


Life is a vacuum bag of debris; you never know what you're gonna find
Aside from 7 pieces of assorted Lego (both kinds), we found: a Polly Pocket purse; a purple hair elastic - the good kind; a dime; three types of pins; a tiny screw lost while modifying a Nerf gun; a tube of whipped eggnog Lipsmacker (No! Wash it first!); broken glass; popcorn kernels; bread clips; unidentified, random plastic toy parts; several lavender syringe needle caps, alcohol swabs, and needle safety tabs; thread. Whoo! Bits of paper from my daughter practising how to hold a pair of scissors. Lots and lots of hair. (Trying not to breathe.) What is that...? The peeled-off backing from numerous stickers, a plastic sock staple, some tape, some Solvy scraps, cardboard bits, two Kleenexes, ew. Uh... more thread, more Solvy, more popcorn. And we've got pencil sharpenings, feathers from the duvet up in our bedroom (need to mend that)... There's a sequin, more Solvy, more feathers, another needle security tab. A Dubble Bubble wrapper - one of dozens brought home by my son from Cogmed. A pill bug carcass - my daughter likes bugs. Vector - we all like Vector. More needle tabby thingies, more bread clips. Oh: another nice hair elastic! A Q-Tip - gross. OK! Enough! Gross...

When it was finished, my son thanked me for the tutorial.

Garden 14:  Harvest
Garden 13: Abandoned Stuff, Things of Beauty
Garden 12: Death and Potential
Garden 11: Japanese Maple Tree and Sedum (?)
Garden 10: Foxglove and Weed Digger
Garden 9: Veggies and Sweet Pea 
Garden 8: Gnomes and Slugs
Garden 7: The Lady Next Door
Garden 6: Euphorbia and Rusted, Metal Things
Garden 5: Cement Bench and Wallflower
Garden 4: Maryjane
Garden 2: The Neighbours'
Garden 1: Lilac Bush and Abandoned Cans

Sunday 14 June 2015

Garden 2: the Neighbours'


Mock orange, front door, welcome mat

"Life is demarcated by its transitory nature."

My neighbour said this to me one year ago, departing my house by the back door for the very last time. Ain't that the truth.

From a home to a health hazard, just like that
I know when they bought the house they intended to stay. The first time we met, on a playdate at the park, brokered by him (with whom in the alley, a day or two before, I had had a brief and cordial discussion about composting), she told me she wanted to be the kind of neighbour you could call up to borrow a cup of sugar. I liked her instantly. Not just sugar, either, but food colouring, ice, gin, wheelbarrow...
One last look at our house from their deck. Our shingles don't match...
We became friends and neighbours, not just friendly neighbours. Our youngest occasionally played ninjas together. Our oldest were usually civil. Good enough. They included us when they entertained. I watered their garden and fed their cat when they were away. We had each other's house keys, alarm codes, and - most coveted - sitter's contact information.
Morning glory
We were careful not to overstep each other's boundaries, but the gate to the back garden was always unlocked (she kept kale plants there, mostly for me) and the welcome mat at their sliding kitchen doors was always out. They were the kind of neighbours you could visit in your pyjamas. And he mixed a mean, well-edited selection of cocktails.
Carpet underlay should be felt and not seen
I'm not always great with life's transitory nature. Good or bad, I seem to need more than the standard amount of time to process change. So, demolition underway, I find myself drawn back to my ex-neighbours' ex-house, for one last look and a souvenir snapshot. I think they might appreciate an update and a picture of the mess.
Soon the diggers roll in
They are an important part of the history of that little purple house (blue, actually, but it was their house; they can call it what they like). They are its last family. That their leaving would likely mean the end for the house, too, must have made the decision doubly hard. Though they hoped to attract a family that would love it the way they did, the house is old, small, and quirky. Development was inevitable.
Unlike me, she had no issue with buttercup
Standing in the overgrown riot of raspberry, roses, weeds and rubble, my attention begins to focus. That is not just broken wainscoting; it is the orange-red trim from their kitchen. That's not just a mess of gutted cabinets, but the lazy Susan that once held their casserole dishes. There's the cupboard with tea, crackers and cat treats. I spent many hours in that kitchen, watching her decorate her secret-family-recipe Shortbread Nut Sticks with melted chocolate and a toothpick. I know it well. I'm not looking at any old half-demolished house; this is their half-demolished house.

She gave me this euphorbia 3 years ago.
I think his old bike will feel at home here.
I see him, flipper in hand, hovering near the BBQ on the back deck, Canadian flag hanging above him. I see her annual Christmas party spread: apple cider on the stove, a crockpot of meatballs on the table, platters of bacon-wrapped dates, chicken wings, cheese and home baking on the metal coffee table. I see the children in their Hallowe'en costumes, made of cardboard, imagination and love.

I glance past the piles of broken drywall, fibre-board and counter top, and notice the tangled, jungly remains of what used to be their vegetable garden. The morning glory, as she knew it would, has won. In three days the house, and the garden, will be gone. Soon enough another house - new, comfortable, efficient - will exist in its place. Wonder if the new neighbours will be the kind you can call up to borrow a cup of sugar.

Garden 14:  Harvest
Garden 13: Abandoned Stuff, Things of Beauty
Garden 12: Death and Potential
Garden 11: Japanese Maple Tree and Sedum (?)
Garden 10: Foxglove and Weed Digger
Garden 9: Veggies and Sweet Pea 
Garden 8: Gnomes and Slugs
Garden 7: The Lady Next Door
Garden 6: Euphorbia and Rusted, Metal Things
Garden 5: Cement Bench and Wallflower
Garden 4: Maryjane
Garden 3: Family Portrait
Garden 1: Lilac Bush and Abandoned Cans

Thursday 11 June 2015

Garden 1: Lilac Bush and Abandoned Cans


Cans hanging in the lilac bush are a sort of penitence
There were three healthy, mature lilacs growing along the East garden fence when we moved into our old-timer house in 1998. The only lilac I had ever known to that point, which lived in our back yard in Kamloops, was a bush, not a tree, and the flowers, being at nose height, were easily enjoyed. In a mistaken attempt to return the flowers of my tree to where they belonged - where I could smell them - I had a friend saw all three trees down to one-foot-high stumps. I shudder when I think of it. This lilac bush is the only one to survive. For 17 years I've been trying to correct that lamentable mistake, one of my very first acts as a gardener. I don't remember what promted me to hang the first of a growing collection of no-longer-useable, abandoned watering (and other) cans from the branches. The "installation" just sort of happened. The cans distract from the awkward, ugly stump and the badly-pruned branches shooting out the top. I rather like the bush as it is now, especially with the volunteer ferns that help hide the unsightly stump, but I definitely regret giving the order that day.

A house-warming gift from Mr. Renwick
Cheapola, abused Ikea can
Doronicum, from a soon-to-be-bulldozed garden.
I like the spent flower heads.

Isn't this green one a beauty?
The other was found in the parking lot
adjacent the Chemainus Theatre on Vancouver Island
I look forward to my lilac blooming around Mother's Day each year. The flowers are white, large, and especially heavenly-smelling at 7 PM. Most years I bring in a big bouquet, which sits elegantly on the back of the toilet, giving off a fantastic scent that fills the house, until I get tired of picking the fallen florets out of my Phentex slippers, and eventually chuck the lot in the yard waste container.

At some point in the summer I will haul out the aluminium ladder - a gift for my husband that I really bought for myself - and snap off the dried-up flower heads. Pruning is on-going, as small stems are constantly budding out in all the wrong directions, and suckers periodically come up beside the stump. Furthermore, the bush is too close to the fence, and has power lines hanging above it, so there's always strategic branch removal happening. I've tried to encourage another lilac, a gift from a friend on a very sad occasion, to grow in other parts of the garden, but no luck. The rest of the yard is just too shady.

The first item to adorn the bush, an ancient, rusty paint can, was found in the rafters of the garage when we bought the house. There had been three other owners before us, including Mr. A. Renwick, house painter, and his family. I expect the can was his. Mr Renwick's touch is all over the house, and he took good care of it. The doors and door frames, though wood, he meticulously painted a different, more classy,  faux wood - a detail I've seen in some other houses of the same age in the neighbourbood. (I wonder, did he paint those houses, too?) I found the faux wood very... something, and with apologies to Mr. Renwick and the help of a can of Kilz Primer, which seems to stick to everything, including varnish, I had the trim painted over in glossy, candelabra white. I wonder what Mr. Renwick would say to that. The hours it must have taken him to painstakingly create that imitation wood grain... Later, at a yard sale in Southlands, I found a bedside table with identical, hand-painted, faux wood grain. I feel a little bit better about obliterating Mr. Renwick's careful work, having that piece of furniture to remind me what it used to look like.

The rest of the cans, milk jug and enamel-coated kettle appeared at various times, from alleys, garage sale "free" boxes, hand-me-downs, and Ikea. The Ikea watering can is the only one I paid for, bought shortly after we moved in. It wasn't long before the spout separated and the bottom dropped out - not to mention the handle getting crushed underfoot. (Aw, come on... watch where you're stepping!) Nowadays, there's nothing I want from Ikea, aside from gingersnaps, the occasional package of frozen meatballs, and a rare jar of lingonberry jam.

All the cans have holes, except for the red gas can, which is too sketchy-looking to use for gas, and was left behind in the neighbour's shed when they moved away. I think it had been there when they moved in, too. I felt like I was removing a precious artifact, but we were told the house would be demolished, and I wanted to make sure this gorgeous specimen wasn't demolished along with it.

Speaking of novice gardening mistakes, other biggies made around this time include: 
  • removing the pear tree (it looked scabby) and; 
  • digging out the evergreen shrubs hiding the less attractive portion of the front of the house. I used to have a thing against evergreen shrubs, though I can't remember what, exactly. They are serviceable, undemanding, and they smell good, too. I replaced these sensible workhorses with fussy, raised, matching flower beds on either side of the front steps, one of which, due to being right up against the plaster, caused the wall to buckle, and hastened the rotting of our wooden steps. It has since been replaced by three evergreen shrubs, much like the originals, found, half dead, dumped in a heap behind a house a block and a half away. I hauled the least dead of them home on my son's plastic, Fisher-Price baby wagon, a hand-me-down from a friend who has been extremely generous to me with her son's clothing and toys. I baby those shrubs with frequent, deep drinks from a barely trickling hose, and three years later, depending on the angle, they look much less dead.
Lesson learned: wait at least a year before making any changes to any newly acquired garden. It's hard to be patient, especially when you've just treated yourself to a new set of gardening gloves, a Costco-sized container of bone meal and a lovely, sharp set of garden shears, but it's worth it. Abandoned cans might hide a number of sins, but they can't bring back all the delicious pears we didn't eat these last 17 years.

Garden 14:  Harvest
Garden 13: Abandoned Stuff, Things of Beauty
Garden 12: Death and Potential
Garden 11: Japanese Maple Tree and Sedum (?)
Garden 10: Foxglove and Weed Digger
Garden 9: Veggies and Sweet Pea 
Garden 8: Gnomes and Slugs
Garden 7: The Lady Next Door
Garden 6: Euphorbia and Rusted, Metal Things
Garden 5: Cement Bench and Wallflower
Garden 4: Maryjane
Garden 3: Family Portrait
Garden 2: The Neighbours'

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Humatrope 6: Three Distractions

Three things that have my attention
Now that the jet-lag is over (more about 10 days in Tokyo with my 12 year-old son later), there are three things on my mind.

Thing One: finish the Humatrope Collar (I think that's what it calls itself)

This is the very most pressing, yet the most impossible of the projects. What's stopping me? A lesson with Blossom, which I can't manage, time-wise, until August, without the help of a whole village.

Still not sure what to do with these bits...
At Blossom's I will learn to make cords to lace up the back of the strictly couture-method, boned, embroidered, beaded corset I've been working on since the fall. It's been a fascinating labour of love, but I admit to being relieved that the end is in sight. A few more hours of beading (an excellent activity for waiting through parkour lessons), make the ties, then insert the lining, make the hand-worked eyelets (using a porcupine quill, no less!), make and attach two beaded tassels, and ta-da! Finished! Blossom says make the garment and the appropriate occasion to wear it will present itself. Maybe; I am happy enough just to make it - I'll learn anything Blossom wants me to know.

I will later apply these principles to make the closure of the collar. I envision two exquisite, beaded, be-tasselled ties hanging down the back, attached to the garment with buttons. This might be where the lavender and light green protective needle caps come in...

Butterfly buttons found in two different boxes of OSF donations. 
Thank you for saving these for me
The gorgeous, glass and metal, butterfly-entrapped buttons were acquired from two separate boxes of donations at Our Social Fabric. I didn't notice I had a pair until an intense sorting of my button boxes after my son left for military boarding school, and I turned his bedroom into a (temporary) sewing room. I learned to transform, with swift efficiency, a den of Lego, Nerf guns, and items needed to modify them, into a functional, airy, organized sewing room, complete with cutting table, ironing board, room for my serger, and a cork board. And vice versa. In the 10 months he was gone I made that transformation 4 times. 

Now I sew in the dining room. Or should I say, we occasionally eat in the sewing room. I gave away the dining room table, painted the bee balm red walls a creamy white (thanks, Erika for the paint), and put the dishes in the basement. My curtains are a dark pink, bobbled, early 70s, off-grain travesty. I have a hand-me-down clothes rack and piles of projects to be sewn. My sewing room is awesome.

So, no Humatrope collar for a month or two, but in the interim, there is

Thing Two: make a Perfect Nightie for my daughter

My daughter likes to twirl, wearing a long, full, swirly nightgown. Who doesn't? I think most people enjoyed it at some point in their lives, and I have a theory that the sexes will never be equal until we are all free to twirl, whenever, wearing whatever comfortable, swirly garment we choose.
Manly, yes, but I like it, too!
The best garment for twirling, according to my daughter, has the following characteristics:
  • it has a full, long skirt, almost to the floor. A skirt that grazes the floor is the best, but for going upstairs, ankle-length is safer, even if you always remember to hold the skirt up with one hand and hold on to the banister with the other; 
  • it has long sleeves, with elastic at the wrist to keep them from creeping up while sleeping; 
  • there are no buttons, but there are ribbons, bows, cheetah print fleece fabric and definitely some dog-ish element. 
It will be a delight to create this dream-come-true for my daughter from the length of cotton, tie-dyed by her at Dunbar Summer Day Camp* last year. The hardest part will be figuring out how to make boxer dog pockets from cheetah print fleece...
*the best place in town for supported day camp, in my opinion
Components for Twirling Nightie Perfection

Thing Three is a real distraction. It is jumping up and down in front of me, waving its arms and shouting, "Yoohoo! Oh, yoohoo Mr. Kotter! Pick me! Pick me!" It's my garden, in need of attention, a good tidying up and a whole lot of loving. Or, more accurately, I need it.

Hand-me-down garden 
I have in mind a series of photos and short pieces about the various plants that have made their way to my garden (doesn't that sound exciting). A few of the plants were purchased, but most are orphans, abandoned, like most things I'm attracted to. Some came from seed collected in the neighbourhood on long walks, pushing a stroller, desperately attempting to lull a frantic, crying baby to sleep. This is when my love of gardening really began. I started noticing flowers and plants that had never registered before: euphorbia, hellebore, grape hyacinth and snowdrops preceding rhododendrons, preceding the crazy, huge, blue mophead hydrangeas that blew my mind when I moved to Vancouver in 1985 to attend UBC.

It was August when I came, just in time for a week or two of fun before school (and the rain) began. The audacity of the massive blue flowers stunned and delighted me. I knew I was home.

Sometime during my determined, distressed march through the seasons, I started noticing stirrings of plant lust within me. I began looking for my favourites in yards and alleys along my many routes. I anticipated their blooms*. As I trudged along, glassy eyed, trying to tune out the crying that only enough time in the stroller (or sometimes, the car) could relieve, I planned where I might put them in my own garden, if I should ever take my hands off the buggy long enough to pick up a shovel.
*The highlight was the smell of the daphne odorata in February. I hovered so long and so often outside the fence of a particular house, deep-breathing to the point of dizziness the crisp, lemon-lilac-lavender scent that reminded me of a wonderful friend I left in Japan, that the owner came out to check me out. I finally bought two of my own, and planted them in containers, anticipating a probable move that still hasn't happened. One of the daphne bloomed its last this spring. Alas


A tiny twig chair, found in a pile of trash behind a church
near Trimble Park, slowly returns to the earth.
Almost all of my plants have a story, or a memory associated with them, happy or sad. My garden has a personality. I visit it, like I would a friend, miss it when I can't. We chat. It tells me what it needs, and I try to listen. It responds to me when I do, leaving me little surprises, as delightful as love notes or miniature salt and pepper shakers my mother tucked into my lunch bag when I was a kid. When I make a mistake, it lets me know, then usually forgives me. It makes me feel like a capable and competent person, and it gives me hope and confidence when motherhood seems like a futile, incomprehensible, surreal undertaking I'm sure I didn't sign up for. I take care of my garden, so I can take care of my family.

So I think what I'll do in my spare time* is hang out in the garden, writing. And on any rainy day until Blossom's lesson I will sew part of a perfect, swirly nightgown. I'm going to have so much fun!
*i.e. instead of doing unnecessary housework. Thank you, Mother-in-Law, for your advice years ago: nobody ever went to her grave wishing she'd done more housework