Taproot

Visitors

I was going to write about figs.  The monster is starting to yield the first of its excesses, and we will soon be inundated by a purple avalanche of fruit, so it seems a logical topic of conversation.  But thinking of figs makes me think of my parents, both of whom are fig lovers...both of whom will be in town this afternoon.  While it is a welcome visit, at least for me, visitors in general bring a strange kind of "outside" to what has become a very insulated household.

Outside is hard and uncomfortable and painful, so forgive me for making it easier to explain by slipping into garden talk.

In the beginning, the garden was mine, an intensely personal expression of shame and contrition.  Despite the circumstances from which it sprang, from the moment I first turned the soil, it was beautiful to me.  I look back at the rapturous awe with which I described its first days.  Given how little I'd done, and how much has come after, it borders on embarrassing.  But I was comparing it to nothing.  I was not trying to recreate Huntington Gardens.  I was re-building the ruins of my world.  In the context of my life, it was on par with the great gardens of the world.

Then it became something Sharon and I shared with each other.  We worked there.  We stood there in silence when we had nothing to say to each other.  Come what may, we could believe we were getting something done...that we were redeeming our wreckage.  There were days when the sheer unexpected beauty of it, even when glimpsed through our back door, would make our knees buckle, bring us to tears.  We could track the regrowth of our relationship with flower buds and salvia.  We didn't know what it would be, but we both began to believe it would be good.

Now there are others who see this garden.  We bring them into it and say, "Look how much we've done," as if they will understand.  Some of them want to.  Some of them would rather not.  None of them truly get it.

They see all the things left to do.  They see the things they would've done differently.  They compare our garden to ideals in magazines and movies and find it lacking.  For all I know, it even makes some of them uncomfortable, a worrisome reference point for the shortcomings of their own yard.  They are not mean-spirited, most of them.  They are merely visitors.

Visitors do not live with it everyday.  They do not water it or weed it or watch it change.  They pass through it, give the requisite "oohs and aahs" and "this is greats".  And we watch.  Wait for their reactions and try not to care if they don't care enough.  It's not their fault.  It's just not their garden.

I know my parents care.  They will pile through the door with their baggage and will want to see how it's all going.  In some ways, it will be the first time they see it for themselves, as opposed to hearing about it from me.  Their attention will be genuine, loving...and uncomfortable.  We will give them the grand tour and then sit down for dinner, and all the while it will be awkward because it is our garden, not theirs.

But they will only be here briefly and, when they leave, we will send them away with figs. 

Selah

Be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

Google this verse and you will find millions of references, sermons, translations and cheesy posters with peaceful streams and other such nonsense.  Go ahead.  Do it.  I don't need to.  Why?  Because I live with it everyday.  Notice I didn't say "live it".  I gracelessly co-exist with it as a concept, an unattainable edict.  It taunts me with its simplicity.  It lures me into quiet moments, peaceful places...where I then sit and wonder how long it will take before I can be done with this motionless crap and move on.

I hate being still.

I am not a "be still" person.  I don't not live a "be still" life.  I don't work in a "be still" environment.  I am up relatively early every morning.  "Sleeping in" involves not setting my alarm.  It doesn't change the time I wake up, it just means I work a little harder to stay in bed longer.  Most days, I put on a shirt and tie, drive to work and spend my time pushing other people to do something.  I do it all month, and then start over the next.  I have places to go, things to accomplish...and I am good at getting them done.  

But being good inevitably leads to needing to be better, which inevitably leads to recognizing I can never be good enough.  As a result, though I have rarely failed, I am constantly a failure in my own constant self-analysis.  Sound complicated?  It is. Tiring?  Absolutely.  And God's answer to it is always the same:  "Be still."

I suck at that.

For reasons beyond my control, my job is stressful right now...more so than usual.  A lot of things hang in the balance, the outcome based on actions that are not mine, decisions that will be made by others.  I can do nothing but wait, try not to fidget, be still...and know that God's got this.  That's just freakin' great.  GIVE ME SOMETHING I CAN DO!!!!

This morning I spent some time in the garden looking for a selah moment.  "Selah" is a word commonly used in the Psalms.  Wikipedia describes it like this:
 

Probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like "stop and listen"...[it also] notes a break in the song and as such is similar in purpose to Amen in that it stresses the importance of the preceding passage.

I need moments like that right now, moments where I stop and take into account the passage of time that has come before this one.  So I forced myself to sit still.  Listen.  There were birds, and bees and the faint sound of cars on the street.  There were flowers that weren't there a year ago and a couple brush cherries that had come back from the brink of extinction but are now beginning to flourish.  It was hard for me, but I sat a little longer than I felt I should, until I heard the truth:

I have this because I listened.  I have this because I obeyed.  I have this because I waited.  I have this because God is GOOD and, despite my own failures, He has never let me down.  If I stop, listen and obey, He's not about to start letting me down now.

I'm trying to hold onto that thought.  No matter how badly I wait for God to do what He's going to do, being still is still my best option.

Selah.

Things I didn't know...

...before gardening.

• Hummingbirds are aggressive little bastards.
• Given the choice, bees prefer flowers to my Coke Zero.
• Spiders are everywhere.
• No matter how hard you try, you can't avoid watering weeds.
• The difference between success and failure has a lot to do with dirt.
• If you want something to be healthy, at some point you have to cut it back.
• Even "good plants" can grow where they shouldn't.
• Pansies are not pussies.
• There's something about a garden that makes it okay to shut up.

OverBlessed

When I was in college, I had a fig tree named Abe.  I bought him at the beginning of my senior year, from a streetside vendor catering to dorm dwellers who had no idea that plants actually need things...like water.  But I digress...

Abe was my first real life experience with a fig tree.  Up to that point, I had mainly thought of figs as your Biblical one stop clothing shop for the previously naked mother and father of humanity, the fruit of which was used to make Fig Newtons -- Did anyone else think Fig Newtons were a poor excuse for a cookie when you were a kid?  

What is this mushy thing with real fruit filling?  Just give me an Oreo for God's sake!

But, again, I digress...

From Abe, I learned why Biblical authors might have thought the fig leaf a perfect accessory for le premier homme as it is very, shall we say, anatomically correct.  I also learned that a tiny little fig sapling, takes a frustratingly long time to grow, and doesn't bear any fruit.  Other than that, I learned absolutely nothing that could have possibly prepared me for the behemoth fig tree living in my backyard.

That fig tree, which in a house where everything gets named, has somehow remained nameless, was one of the first things I loved about this house.  On my first visit to see the house my realtor, a wonderful Persian man, excitedly took me into the backyard to show it to me.  It was beautiful, large branches and dark green leaves casting a wonderful shade in the late afternoon sun.  Though it was early September, there were even a few ripe figs left on it.  Other than the aforementioned Fig Newtons, or as an occasional accompaniment to goat's cheese, I had never eaten a fig before.  I had certainly never eaten one straight off a tree.  But, at my realtor's insistence, I relented and bit into the weird purpley green fleshy fruit.

Holy crap, that was good!

Though there were other reasons for buying the house, I must admit that the fig tree (and the tangerine tree) featured prominently in my homeowner dreams.  What a blessing it would be to walk out into our yard and pick fruit from our own trees!

I would be lying if I said that, looking back, I don't feel a little bit duped.  In the same way my German Shepherd (God bless her) bears little resemblance to the bundle of fuzz she was when we got her, that fig tree is nothing like it was on that September afternoon.

To begin with, someone must have pruned it before they put the house on the market, because it was quite a tidy tree.  In the two years we've lived here, I have pruned it back twice, and both times the tree has taken it as a challenge to grow back twice as much.  This year, it is growing so much fruit that it is literally sagging beneath the weight of it, its branches bowed until they touch the ground.

As I ponder this monstrous maker of fruit gradually taking over its corner of the yard, I find myself wondering:  "Can one be overblessed?"

I mean, one can only eat so many figs, right?  And, looking at the enormous strain the fruit seems to be putting on the tree itself, you have to wonder if the tree isn't being just a little over zealous with its output.  Maybe this massive crop of blessings will be too much for the tree to handle.  Maybe it has more fruit than its structure justifies.

Or maybe, just maybe, having "too much" of a good thing, getting more than you can handle...or more than you might deserve, even...is exactly what being blessed truly is.  In the most famous Psalm, David describes God's blessings by saying: "My cup runneth over." Sound like too much.  Sounds messy.  Sounds like exactly how God might draw it up.

The fig tree gave out "way too much fruit" last year, too.  We had a few, gave a way a few and fed a neighborhood of possums, squirrels, birds and bugs with our over-abundance.  By the end of the season, there wasn't a single fig left on it. 

I stopped trying to second guess God's plans and decided to enjoy it a little.  I crawled up under the low hanging canopy, where the air was cool and smelled like honey, looked at all God's blessings.  Some of them are mine, some of them will go to the neighborhood wildlife, and none of us have done anything to deserve them.  One thing's for sure, though: there will be more than enough to go around.

Not-So-Endless Summer

Ahh, Summer!  As I child, I dreamt of you, anxiously counting the days left till I could run amok, unfettered by school schedules and homework.  June to August were an unbroken chain of swim meets and summer camp, offset by gluttonous bike riding, and all framed in the glorious golden brown of a summer tan.  College brought a new sense to you, oh, Summer season: an orgiastic haze of sun soaked beaches and freedom, extending from my last final to the day I could tell my summer boss to kiss my collegiate ass goodbye.  Even in adulthood, you have been a harbinger of vacation days and barbecues, camping trips and margaritas by the pool.

Oh, Summer!  Stupendous, sumptuous, Summer...why do you suck so bad this year?

I'll tell you why: Because I've never had a garden before.  Summer, once the bastion of a blissful, carefree attitude, has bio-degraded into a two and a half month long worry marathon.  It started with a nasty letter from the Department of Water and Power informing us that, not only were our rates going up, but our spring planting and month-long marathon of visitors taking showers had landed us squarely on their compost list.  That has set off a litany of changes to watering schedules, time durations, water conservation practices...all the while watching our beautiful plants wilt, and our gorgeous lawn turn brown under the weight of 100+ degree heat.

The garden itself seems to be holding up quite well, all things considered.  The problem is, compared to the explosion of color and growth that was spring, Summer is positively boring.  In Spring, we would walk out one day and be amazed by how much something had grown...then walk out a couple days later and wonder how we could have been amazed at the previous growth, when the newest growth was SOO much more dramatic.  In Summer, we walk out and wonder if things are going to make it.

Last summer was like that, too, I guess.

Everything I read says that plants go dormant in extreme temperatures, switching from growth mode, to survival mode.  I suppose I can relate, having lived through one of those extreme changes in living conditions myself.  I remember how I looked for the tiniest signs of life, how much I rejoiced at glimmers of beauty...and how resigned I was to nature running its course.  Then I think about the fact that, on Monday, Sharon and I will celebrate our seven year anniversary.

I resolve to cut my garden (and my lawn) a little slack.  We went out in the middle of the day to hang our new birdhouses.  We admired the flowers on the Canna that are still brazenly blooming, the way the salvia have turned from slender stalks to woody bushes, and the random busy bee working through the noon-time heat.  As I wandered, I quietly reassured everyone that it's okay to take a break for a while, that I don't love them any less than I did a couple months ago...and I promised to give everyone an extra drink of water tonight, a toast to the fact that Summer doesn't last forever.

***Note:  Everything I've read also says that planting things in extreme summer heat is a surefire way to fail.  Glad I didn't know THAT a year ago.

Birdhouse for my soul...

Little known fact:  I was supposed to be a veterinarian.  At least that was what the bets were as I was growing up.  It seemed every other day, I was bringing home some stray animal or another.  There was the wild mallard I befriended in my backyard, the labrador I found wandering the street, a gopher I rescued from a bunch of kid throwing rock and brought home in my baseball glove (it promptly bit my brother Ben on the finger and he had to get a rabies shot, but that's another story)...

And then there was Star.  I was out riding my bike in the neighborhood one day, and came across a couple kids with two baby birds in a box.  They had fallen from a palm tree, had no feathers to speak of and were not looking in great shape.  I took them home, wrapped them in towels and put them under a desk lamp on the head of my bead to keep them warm.  One of them didn't make it through the night.  But the other one was still hanging on...and it was hungry.

I'm not sure how we figured it out, or if we were even right, but it turns out the bird was a starling.  So, of course, I named him Star...gimme a break, I was 8.  I moved Star to a big cardboard box, fed him ground up chicken feed mush with an eye dropper and, for the next several weeks, I did my best to be a mommy bird.  Despite his rough start, I like to think Star had a pretty good life.  He learned to fly by jumping off of the top bunk of our bunk beds and pretty much got to poop all over most of the books in my bookshelf, all the while living in air conditioned comfort while the rest of his kind were sweltering in the desert summer heat.  Eventually, he got too big to keep roaming freely in my house, so Star had to move to a neighbor's house where he could live with all their other birds.  I'm not sure what happened to him after that, as I went back to school and moved on the way only kids can do.

But I've always kept a soft spot for baby birds, a fact that has been killing me this year.  Several bird families chose our garden as their new home, and over the course of the spring we have been able to watch, and hear, all the new baby birds in our yard.  But, with heartbreaking regularity, there have been casualties...learning to fly from a bunk bed is much safer than falling from a nest in a ficus.  

I have done my best to stay out of it, letting nature take its course, but yesterday pushed me to the limit.  Sharon and I discovered a baby mockingbird in our driveway.  It did not seem to have the use of its legs.  If I had been able to catch it, I would have brought it inside, but it had enough strength in its wings to flutter away from us.  Eventually, I had to admit there was probably little I'd be able to do to save it, as it was clearly hurt.  We sat on the front porch and watched the other mockingbirds fly frantically above the lost bird, listened to their heartbreaking cries for as long as we could stand it, and then went back inside.

Sharon said: "This probably happens all the time every year.  We're just noticing it because this year we're paying attention."

I'm sure she's right.  Being aware of one's environment is not all about sunlight and roses.  A good part of it is about accepting there are some things you just can't do anything about.

I get it...but today we're going to go buy a couple birdhouses from the craft store.  Maybe next year, it'll help keep a couple little ones safer.  

I come to the garden alone...

Growing up in Calexico, my family attended the local Methodist Church.  It was quite progressive, as Methodist churches go.  They did fairly contemporary worship music with <gasp> a drum kit and guitar, and did bilingual services.  However, at least once a service, they got down to their roots with some good ol' fashioned hymns.

And now, please stand and open your hymnals to page 356.  We will be singing verses 1,3 and 5.

Then Mary Brubaker would strike the opening chords on the organ and everyone would sing together.  For my older brother and I, it was the epitome of boredom.  We usually amused ourselves by singing different verses, singing the words out of order, or changing them entirely.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand/All other ground is stinking sand...all other ground is STINK-ING sand! 

If my mother gave us one of her looks, we would tone it down and sing harmony, instead.

Despite my best efforts to ruin the experience, those hymns have had a tremendous impact throughout my life.  Not only did they form the basis for developing an ear for harmony, they have consistently reverberated in my memory during some of my most trying times.

So it has been no surprise that over the past year, I have heard the strains of those childhood services on a regular basis.  By far, the one I have thought of the most is "I Come To The Garden Alone".  No leaps of imagination needed to understand why.   In the early days of my garden, I spent a great deal of time in it alone, whether I was working on it, or escaping to it.  I was working on salvaging a marriage, searching for a relationship with God...but I felt completely alone.  My family, though I knew they loved me, was doing a piss poor job of reaching out to me.  What friends I had left were either unable to say anything to help me, or were not being given an opportunity to try, due to my self-imposed exile.

It would be fair to say that I was not getting past the first line of Verse 1.  

I come to the garden alone...

As my relationship with Sharon progressed, the garden became more and more a place we shared.  She threw me a private wine and cheese birthday party.  She would go to the nursery to look at plants.  She even spent the odd morning here and there weeding. 

When a family emergency called, and she left the country, I decided I would put a plant in there for her.  After much deliberation, I picked a Don Juan rosebush, a climbing rose with beautiful deep red blooms and an aroma that evoked Shakespeare:  call it what you want, it smells damn good.  I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.  It was beautiful, it was romantic...

...and it opened up that old hymn to me in a way I would never have expected.

When my brother Ben and I sang the hymn, we always focused on the chorus.  Not because of the words.  No, no...we loved that chorus because it gave us the opportunity to sway back and forth and act like sailors raising their mugs and singing a raucous drinking song.

A-N-D H-E...WALKS with me and He TALKS with me...

Whatever.  I'm not proud, but it was pretty funny to us, and it made that hymn one of our favorites, one of the only ones we sang correctly...and one of the ones for which I remember the words most clearly.

So it was, that on one of the first mornings after I planted that Don Juan, I found myself drinking an early morning coffee, completely enraptured by the beauty of dew drops on rose petals.  In the silence of the cool morning air, I heard Mary play the opening chords and I heard a song I can honestly say I'd never truly heard before.

I come to the garden alone/while the dew is still on the roses/and the voice I hear falling on my ear/the Son of God discloses

 And He walks with me, and He talks with me/And He tells me I am His own/And the joy we share as we tarry there/None other has ever known

This was no silly pseudo-drinking song.  This was a love song.  This was a song about how God Himself was choosing to let me know I belonged to Him, even if I didn't feel I belonged to anyone else.  This was a painfully intimate poem detailing the fact that God had made all this for ME...that no one else on the planet would ever experience this exact same overpoweringly humbling moment of pure and unadulterated joy.  This was as close to heaven as I was probably going to get.

It has been almost a year, and the roses have been blooming again for a couple months.  Sharon and I have our coffee by the rosebush almost every morning, together.  But, once in a while I go out there alone and stand really close, breathing in deeply, realizing how far I've come and how GOOD God is to me...which brings to mind another hymn:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.