Taproot

The space cries out...

I started this because I was ignorant.  Because I didn't know any better.  In those first few moments of chainsaw and oleander, I was blissfully unaware of how many square feet of wood and debris could spring from thirty odd bushes.  My pastor was there to help. If you cut all this down, you'll have to replace it with something, he said.  And I ignored it, as I ignore many other things he says, because it was so obvious.  So simple.  I was making space.  Clearing poison.  Bad stuff gone, makes good things easy.

And then, after years of branches, overgrown and unwanted, had poured themselves down on my shoulders--- covered me in dirt and dust and despair -- then, I wished I'd listened.  But there was nothing done that could be undone.  And when one can't go back, one must press forward.  At least that's what I wanted to believe, not counting on the third option, the one involving nothingness.  Apathy and a pool of barren dirt, growing ever more stagnant and riddled with emptiness, swallowed the momentum of my naivete, until it was all I could do to keep from drowning in sunbaked clay.  And drown I might have, had I not broken myself against the ground and turned the pieces of my life into the soil with a hand me down spade.

It is easy to forget, listening to the music of leaves and water and flowers, how life unwanted gave way to dirt neglected before achieving unexpected rebirth.  But before there was space to fill, there was space to make.  And once made, it cried out to be used.  To be planted.  To have roots sunk into it.  But our parcel of earth, once inconsolable, is now at peace beneath the weight of our toils.  Indeed, it is our own private miracle that we now search for places to place new things in.

I need that private miracle in my soul.  The poison of years has been ripped from it, packed into a forty yard bin and removed to place where East is furthest from West.  In the back corner, there is life blooming, designed in love and bursting with potential.  But I am increasingly overwhelmed by all the empty space still left to be filled...daunted by the tasks I have not even thought to think of yet.

In the middle of all of this, I returned to my hometown for the first time in five years.  It was amazing to see some old friends, soothing to drive familiar streets.  But everywhere was the reminder that I'd left this place.  A thing done that could not be undone.  I will visit again, but there can be no going back.  So where is forward?  How is onward?  This space inside cries out to be filled, and I cannot abide the thought of leaving it barren and empty, like so much dirt at the furthest end of a yard.

Dear, God in Heaven.  I landscaped the yard.  Just like You told me to.  Just like I said I would.  Please landscape my heart.  Amen.

Going to see Bob

There is a gnome guarding the entrance to our garden.  Truth be told, there are gnomes everywhere in our garden, but this one is different.  This one was first.  He appeared on the first night Sharon and I shared the world I was struggling to create, a birthday gift from a woman who was deciding whether to learn to love me again.  A peace offering, or at least a promise of a temporary ceasefire.

We named him Bob, in honor of our erstwhile marriage counselor, and while the counselor eventually dumped us (we think) and has faded into the past, Bob the Gnome has stayed ever faithful.  He has endured frost, rain, dogs, wheelbarrows and paint withering heat, but for two years he has never wavered from his spot by the arches.  It is his job to guard our paradise and, so far, he has done it well.

A couple days after I brought the turtles home, Sharon found one of them huddled at Bob's feet.  Incredibly, he had managed to make the trek all the way up the creek.  Somewhere along the line, he climbed out, crossed the path and then, inexplicably, chose to stop at the entrance to the garden.  Perhaps he was simply tired.  It was, after all, an odyssey of epic proportions for a 3 inch turtle.  But in my imagination, he reached the entrance to paradise and was stopped by Bob.  Though I'm sure Bob speaks in a gruff gnome voice, I believe that, with the turtle, he was uncharacteristically gentle. 

Where are ya goin', little fella'?

Dunno.  I'm scared and that place in there looks beautiful.

It certainly is beautiful.  It certainly is.  But ya don't wanna go in there.  It's not the place for ya yet.

It isn't?

No, I don't believe it is.  But I'll tell ya what, little fella'?  Why don't ya stay here and talk with me for a spell?  I could use the company.

And so they sat and talked about the things turtles and gnomes have in common, until Sharon picked him up and carried him, squirming, back to the pond.  Sharon didn't say, but I'm guessing that if she'd been listening, she'd have heard Bob call out.

I'll see you around, little fella'!

On Monday, the little guy went back to see Bob again.  Only this time, it was a different journey one that began when he climbed onto a warm flat rock and fell asleep in the sun for the last time.  Again, it was Sharon who found him.  But it was I who carried him, still and strangely light, back to Bob's feet.  Like my abuelito before me, I held a lifeless turtle in my hands and cried.  Then, I dug him a safe place and wished him well in paradise.

Though I feel pangs of guilt for his death, in my heart, I believe he had a good, if short, life.  He had plenty of sun.  Plenty of space.  And his final resting place is as beautiful as anyone could ask for.  Plus he has Bob to keep him company.

On Friday, I will travel to my hometown to say goodbye to the father of one of my dearest friends.  He lived a long, long life.  The better part of a century.  He lived his life to the fullest, enjoying his wife, his children and his grandchildren.  He had plenty of sun.  Plenty of space.  Then, on a Tuesday night, he went to sleep and did not wake up for Wednesday.

We will all take a final breath some day.  Moments like these seem to bring that into sharp focus.  It's a sobering thought.  A somber thought.  So forgive me if I deal with it by imagining a hand lifting us from our rock, carrying us to the arches and welcoming us into paradise...and for imagining that if Saint Peter is at the gates, he looks like Bob.

 

Mile Markers

How do you measure the distance you've come when you haven't really moved?  Every once in a while, you stand in a familiar place and let yourself realize you've never been there before. 

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 In two years, our garden has not changed location.  But it has come a long, long way.

Beyond Words

When I first started this blog, I had little more than words.  Sentences that began with "sorry".  Descriptions of what I'd done and what I planned to do.  Dreams spoken of but not lived.  They were important.  They kept me focused.  Positive.  But they were just words. 

Over the past few weeks, I've moved past words.  I recognize their value, to me and to others, but I tire of them.  Is it any wonder?  With all of my education, all of my facility with this silly language of ours, I do not have words big enough for this.

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 There was nothing here.  Now, there is everything.  My life.  My wife's life.  The lives of a thousand unnamed creatures.  The lives of a few creaturas with names.  This is where we have rediscovered our happiness.  This is where we invite others to share our happiness.

  
Someday, I may move on from this place.  But for now, I'm going to pull up a chair and take my time enjoying this thing we've done.  This thing I've done.

  
I'm proud of me.  At long last, I don't care whether anyone else agrees. 

Shell Games

Three weeks since my last post.  I didn't mean to go this long without writing.  I meant to write a jubilant post about how I finally fixed my creek.  Two weeks ago.  But I was too busy realizing the reason I'd really wanted to fix the creek was because I wanted to get water plants.  And fish.  And turtles.  Most of all, turtles.

I really wanted turtles.

Maybe it's because my mother told me a turtle was the reason for one of the only times she'd seen my abuelito cry.  Its name was Caligula and my mom says it would come to the top of its bowl when my abuelito called it.  "Caligula," she'd say, imitating the grandfather I'd never met, and a little turtle would float up from the depths of the past to retrieve food from the man we both wished we'd gotten a chance to know better.  "He loved that turtle," she said.  "And when it died, he cried."

I used to catch my abuelita staring at me sometimes.  When I'd ask her why, she'd say I looked so much like her husband.  The more I learned about him, the more I sometimes thought that wasn't a compliment.  But the man cried about a turtle.  There was a good, loving man inside of him, and maybe I just wanted to learn what it was about a reptile that could bring that out.

Or maybe I just wanted a turtle.

In any case, as soon as I thought I'd fixed my creek, I went into research and development mode.  I'd been burned before by this goddamn body of water.  I ran it for a few hours, put a plank in the water with a mark on it and measured the water level constantly.  Sure enough, it was still leaking.  But I was so close and I had one more likely spot of egress for my wayward water.  Futzed around with inclines and water flow.  Put my plank in the water again and ran it.  And watched.  Was it just me, or did that water level just go up?  Ran it some more.  And some more.  Ran it three days straight.  No time to write.  Too busy watching.  Piss off.  This is actually working!

And then I got obsessed.  I told Sharon I was going to get water plants.  And maybe fish.  And probably turtles.  She wasn't really listening.  She was watching the look in my eyes...she knows that look.  The nothing's gonna stop me look.  The look that got us a crazy German Shepherd.  The look that was most definitely going to get us a turtle.

"We have to name one of them Seymour."

Did she just say we could get TWO turtles?!  I believe she did!

I'll spare you the rest of the compulsive water plant/fish/turtle shopping saga.  How I rushed to the nursery in my shirt and tie and loaded up on water hyacinth.  How I spent hours researching Red Eared Sliders.  How I went to two different Petsmarts within the span of an hour, only to be told they wouldn't have any for three weeks. 

Three weeks!?  In three weeks I'll be hiding under my bed covers, snapping my fingers and muttering "turtles, turtles!" incessantly.  I need a red eared slider right the fuck NOW!

I will tell you that, after being delicately redirected to Aquarium City by the kindly owner of a reptile store, I found those red eared sliders.  And ended up buying two Yellow Bellied Cooters instead because, really, who would choose a slider, when you can have a cooter?  Not me. (Technical note: Yellow bellied cooters are members of the slider family.  But who would call something a slider when you can call it a cooter?  Not me.)

And then I was driving home with two cooters in a box.  Which was worth it just to write that one sentence.  But was also worth it to realize why it was I loved turtles.  Because they are unabashedly crotchety.  One of them glared at me the whole way home, his face clearly saying, "I don't know who you are buddy, but kiss my ass!"  The other one just ignored me and tucked himself into his shell, as if he could will me into forgetting about him.  These were not puppies, or kitties, or any other kind of fluffy animal wanting to play or be cuddled.  They were angry little sonuvabichitos who wanted me to leave them the fuck alone.  I understood them.  Because sometimes I'm the same way.

I don't want to be cuddled.  I don't want to coaxed into a smile or cajoled into having something to eat.  I'm not going to come out of my shell just because you speak to me like a baby, and for crying out loud, can a man lie on a rock for one goddamn minute without someone trying to creep up and stare at him?!  I am doing just fine being pissed off, thank you and leave my food where I can find it.

Over the past couple weeks, I have spent hours watching those two little bastards.  Sometimes, hours just watching where I think the two little buggers might be, even though they don't feel like coming out.  But I've learned to stop grabbing for them, or trying to get too close to them.  They come out when they're good and ready, and I'm learning to be okay with the fact that sometimes that's when I'm not around.

Like I said, I never met my abuelito, but I hear he was not the most affectionate man.  I can see how a turtle could be his thing.  I love dogs with all my heart.  I've learned to love cats, too.  Mine at least.  I love how they need me.  How they love on me and how they love when I love on them.  But, I guess there's a little of my abuelito in me after all, because I'm starting to really love the fact these little guys prefer to be left alone.

Thankfully for all, while I may have enjoyed my turtleness for the past couple of weeks, I am not about to take it up full time.  I just needed some time in the shell.  A little "now you don't" to balance out the "now you see me."  While I don't ever expect they will come when I call, I hope Seymour and my Caligula will eventually learn to be a little more social, too.  Though by the look on this little guy's face, I don't expect that will be anytime soon.  I'm cool with that.