Taproot

A good first draft...

I have always been a procrastinator, never more so than when it came to writing school papers.  In high school, the night before an essay was due was a frenzy of activity, as I hurried to put together an argument, research and footnotes in one fell swoop.  It didn't help that I was a perfectionist, too, especially when it came to writing.  Regardless of how little time I'd left myself, I refused to scrimp on quality.  I agonized over spelling and content and did my best to deliver an elegant turn of phrase or witty argument whenever possible...and that was the easy part.  The hard part came at the end: my father's proofread.

Aside from one's self criticism, one's parents are often the toughest critics.  My father was no exception.  In fact, given his lifetime devotion to intellectual pursuits, he was tougher than most.  This was never more true than when it came to writing.  Still, the child in me wanted his approval, knowing if he liked it, it must be good.  So, after putting together my last minute masterpieces, I would print them out, find my dad and ask him to look at it.

"Dad, check out my paper on Euthanasia!"

Dad looks up from his newspaper, takes the offered essay, makes himself comfortable and starts reading.  I stand there waiting, pride in my work pending parental validation.  I know it's good.  I just need him to sign off.  He reaches the end, grabs a pen and starts over, making occasional marks on my perfect paper.  What could he possibly be correcting?  Seconds become minutes, ticking away towards his inevitable comment.

"It's a good first draft."

 Are you kidding me?! 

"Dad, it's due tomorrow."

He hands it back to me and shrugs, the implication clear: "Due tomorrow" should be enough time to get it right.  And that was it.  No suggestions for how to rephrase or re-word.  Just a bunch of extra "that's" crossed out and a bruising blow to the ego.  I slink away to my computer to fix it.

I don't think I ever showed him a second draft.  One emotional beatdown per paper was more than enough.  Truth be told, most of my "first drafts" were good enough to get an "A" in any class.  But Dad was bigger than grades.  So, I went back to the drawing board and fine-tuned until I felt it would meet his standards, promising myself that next time I would only have to do it once to do it right.  His nitpicking propelled me to perfection and, by the time I graduated from college, I was a master at one draft papers.  But, no matter how good I got at it, the thought was always in the back of my mind: "It's just a good first draft."

Like writing, if you want to get it right, life is not a one draft process.  No matter how disciplined and vigilant you are, there are always things that can be done better, said better.  Unnecessary words clutter communication of ideas and even the things we think we are especially good at can be revisited and improved upon.  If we're lucky, we start off with a good first draft, but if you're like me, the first run through can be remarkably rough.

It's been over a year since I started the garden.  In its own way, it's a one draft A+ paper, especially if you put it in a forgiving context.  But we've seen a few beautiful gardens in the last few weeks, Descanso Gardens, the Getty and some enviable personal gardens.  Just as I'd never rank my writing with that of the scions of literature or the stars of academia, I don't expect our garden to rival the quality of those gardening masterworks.  However, with planting season approaching, I think we could do with a few more edits.

The writing is constantly improving, too.  A couple weeks ago, I was finally able to get my dad to read this blog.  When my parents visited, I sat him down in front of my computer, told him to read the "I Come to the Garden alone" post and walked away.  When I came back, he was crying.

"This is good," he said.

I've waited years for that, but it as far as compliments go, it was as polished a final draft as any I've heard.

Thanks, Dad.  I love you.  Get better soon, okay?

Earthquake Weather

David!  David, wake up!  Come on, mijo, we're having an earthquake and you need to get out of bed.

My father rousts me from my upper bunk, the world wobbling on its axis, swaying back and forth like a ship clinging to its anchor in a storm.  My older brother and I stagger sleepily to the hall and huddle in a door frame, terror and excitement battle for control of our senses as books fall from bookshelves all over the house.  And then, as suddenly as it began, it is over.

California is for earthquakes, and this is one of my earliest memories of them.  I remember it vividly.  Perhaps it's because I was so young.  Perhaps it's because, after a lifetime of shakes and tremors, earthquakes have lost their shock value, individual instances blending together into one continuous rolling motion.

Others are not so blase.  Not everyone grew up with potentially catastrophic events as an everyday possibility.  For them, every tremor reminds them they have moved to a place that might one day slip its moorings and drift into the ocean.  Here in the San Fernando Valley, the memory of the Northridge Quake is still fresh.  People lost everything, their lives slid from their foundations and collapsed into chaos.  "Minor" quakes are major reminders of previous pain.

I skipped the garden this morning.  I got up late, rushed through the early morning routine, and skipped coffee.  But as I let the dogs out and looked around from the back porch, I couldn't help but notice an unnerving calm in the air.  Leaves stood still and quiet beneath an orange overcast sky.  Later, standing outside the office, feeling the heaviness of the air, it hit me.

This is earthquake weather.

How to explain that concept to the uninitiated?  I'm not sure how, but over the years quake veterans develop a sixth sense for these things.  For others it may be different, but for me it usually has to do with what I perceive to be unnatural stillness, lethargy almost, and a redness to the sky.  There is a taught tension to the atmosphere that strains at the earth.  And then the ground moves.

Sometimes a shudder.  Sometimes a shake.  Sometimes a prolonged rolling motion so gentle it takes a moment to realize it's happening.

Something's coming.

Somehow, I know it isn't bad.  I, too, am calm.  This is not The Big One, but a more gentle reminder to not get too comfortable where I am.  After weeks of dozing, boredom even, it's time to get out of bed and brace myself.  Things are moving.  Things are shaking.

I am ready.

Sunflowers

Whoever coined the phrase "Fragile as a flower" had limited access to sunflowers.  Having purchased the occasional bouquet of them at Trader Joe's, I have often marveled at how hefty they are.  Though guaranteed to put a smile on Sharon's face, a bunch of sunflowers could just as easily be used to cudgel someone senseless.  Beautiful?  Yes.  Fragile?  Hardly.

Given their general sturdiness, I figured growing them would be a cinch.  Umm, no.

My first set of seeds went in the ground behind the durantas, but all they amounted to was a bunch of empty shells littered along my nice little furrow of dirt.  Apparently, birds LOVE sunflower seeds.

Round two involved me scattering them around without much prep work.  More empty shells.  Did you know squirrels love sunflower seeds, too?

Sudden death round had a little more prep, but focused on on quantity versus quality.  Plant a LOT of seeds, and SOMETHING is going to grow.  Right?  Okay, so I probably should have called it something other than "sudden death", since that's what most of my would be yellow giants suffered at the hands of our backyard wildlife.  Still, the mass planting strategy worked the best.  After a couple weeks, we had some baby sunflowers growing between the lavender and the duranta.

And then we waited.  And waited.  And then, suddenly...we waited some more.  You see, growing flowers with stalks as thick as young trees takes time.  After what felt like several weeks, two of the sunny survivors started to form buds.  ETA for sunflowers: any day now.

Again, we watched and waited, eagerly anticipating the dramatic appearance of a big, showy bloom, the familiar abundance of yellow petals around a dark brown center.  Then, after a few more days we walked out and saw:

WHAT?!

I felt like someone secretly swapped our sunflower with a toothless redneck replica.  We spent a couple days making fun of it, laughing about how silly it was, imagining what it would sound like if it talked (think Sloth from the Goonies).  A few days later, the second flower bloomed.

Now THAT'S more like it!  Big.  Beautiful.  Awe inspiring.  The way a sunflower is supposed to look.  The way every sunflower one sees in pictures or in bouquet looks.

Call me crazy, but I like the first one better.

Go figger.

I've been cranky for three days,  the kind of cranky usually reserved for when the Angels are losing and 120 degree days with no air conditioning...only the Angels are on a 5 game win streak, the weather has been unseasonably comfortable and my AC works great.  So what the heck is my problem?

I golfed yesterday.  Badly.  That didn't help.  Then I came home with a headache and found a large bag of freshly picked figs sitting on the kitchen counter.  My parents picked a bunch and forgot to take them.  Great.  Now what?  

The Angels killed the Twins for the second day in a row, Sharon came home and did her best to cheer me up.  Still cranky.

A full night's sleep, a lazy morning and a leisurely day weeding and watering in the garden and I was still acting like a baby with diaper rash.  

I like to think this is Sharon's game, picking fights about nothing and trying her best to avoid being tricked into feeling better, but I'm just as bad.  She doesn't do it often, but when the spirit takes her, look out.  Like the time she blew up at me in the car and wanted me to drop her by the side of the road.  I took her miniature golfing instead, forced her to pick a ball and a club and walked her to the first hole.

Fine!  I'll do it but I'm not going to enjoy myself.

She struck the ball with all her anger and walked away without looking to see where it went.

Hole in one, baby!

She didn't believe me, knew that if it was true, she wouldn't be able to be mad anymore.  She walked up to the hole and looked in.  Done.  She walked back with a sheepish look on her face and folded herself into my arms, laughing and crying at the same time.  When things are so good, being mad is a losing battle.

But this morning I was still fighting it.

Sharon refused to be goaded into a petty fight. Instead, she plopped a cookbook in front of me and proclaimed we were making fig spread with my parents' forgotten fruit.  Desperate to deny happiness, I took the opportunity to accuse her of bossing me around, being overly critical of how I diced.

If you think you can do it better, you do it!

And she did, chopped figs into neat 1/4 inch cubes while I performed the more appropriate task of juicing lemons.  Some honey.  Some pepper.  Some stirring.  Some sulking.  Some sesame seeds.  45 minutes of unadulterated adolescent attitude.

All I can smell is lemons.  It's going to be sour.

Undeterred, she tasted it.

David, this is good!

NO!  It can't be!  But it is.  Hole in one.  The next 30 minutes are spent stuffing our face with crackers, Iberico cheese and warm fig spread.  Who can do that and be angry?

We eat well in this house, she said.

Despite ourselves, we love well, too.