Taproot

Life in Context

Everywhere I look there is Spring.  After an abnormally cold and rainy winter, the weather has finally settled into the sunshiney 80s and the world around me is responding with a burst of new growth.  In the garden, there are flowers that weren't there two weeks ago and there are tomato seedlings sprouting in little pots on my dining table.  Tis the season of promise and new beginnings.

Yesterday I came home early.  I was feeling sick and needed to rest.  But, before I crawled into bed and shut down, I took a walk through the garden and had a good look around.  Shrubs and perennials, planted in uncertainty and expectation, were making it clear they are here for the long haul.  Annuals, determined to make the most of their limited time, were blooming furiously and there were birds working on nests in the trees overhead.  There is a dizzying variety of color and song, yet they are unified in their message:  Life is coming.  Life is here.

They are unified in one other thing, as well.  Not a single plant or creature out there has any idea of the role they have played in the rejuvenation of my life and marriage.  Even if those plants were sentient, there is no way they could know the simple fact of their existence would provide the hope Sharon and I needed to get through the winter of our discontent and see this Spring together.

I am struck by the thought that, in many respects, we are all similarly ignorant of our importance to the bigger picture.  We live because it is our instinct to do so, rarely realizing the impact this function of biology has on the world around us.  Life is just what we do.  Yet, if we are ever lucky enough to be gifted with greater perception, we might realize there are people to whom our survival matters.  In the damp and despair of darkness, they hope for our happiness.  And, when it blooms, their lives are better for it.

Today, my father and younger brother celebrate their birthdays.  When taken in context, I'm sure the significance of the event is different for each of their lives.  But for me, it is a chance to take pleasure and joy in the role they have played in mine.

Daddy and Daniel, my life and the lives of others are better because yours continue.  I love you both.  Happy Birthday.  

The things we leave behind...

My older brother, his wife, and their two toddlers were here for the weekend.  As is usually the case with visits involving small children, not to mention a cornucopia of animals of various sizes, there were some stressful moments.  There was some childish willfulness.  There were some missed opportunities to say "Please" and "Thank you."  There were some tantrums.  There were some patience tests.  And there was a whole lot of noise.  But, if you went looking for them, there were splashes of color beautiful enough to take your breath away.

One of my favorites involved giving my 3 ("and a half!") year old niece, Katy, on the "what smells good in the garden" tour.  We started with the Corsican mint, which has a sinus-clearingly powerful mint aroma, and I had her rub her hand in it.

Wow!  It smells like mint!

From there, we moved to the myrtle bush, where I crushed some leaves and handed them to her.

Wow!  It smells like mint!

For future reference, the corsican mint is not the best place to start the tour.  Once you touch it, everything smell like mint.  Rosemary, oregano, jasmine, lavender--my niece now believes they ALL smell like mint.  I hope that doesn't screw her up later, because it made me smile.  She seemed to enjoy it, too.  However, her favorite garden activity by far, was picking flowers.  She spent so much time wandering from plant to plant, looking for the prettiest ones.  Once she'd put together a suitable bouquet, she announced, "These are for my mommy!", and ran off to deliver it.  It was a moment that made my heart glow like sunshine.  It must have made her mommy happy, too, because those picked flowers found their way into a glass of water on the dining room table.   

They all left today and, inevitably, there was a call after they'd been on the road for a while, asking about the things they'd left behind.  An iPod.  Some portable speakers.  But as we walked through our newly quiet house, I noticed there was something else that hadn't made the return trip.

 

I'll put the speakers and the iPod in the mail this week.  For the flowers, a picture will have to do.

A lesson I would like to unlearn...

A year ago, Sharon and I took a trip to Mexico.  At the time, we had no idea if we'd stay together.  To be honest, I think we were just going because our therapist said it might be a good idea.  It was. We just got back from an amazing repeat trip, an anniversary, as it were.  For a week, we did nothing but lie on a beach, go to happy hour in a bar overlooking the ocean and eat incredible food.   It was a much needed break, but by the end of the week we were ready to come back home.  We missed our dogs.  We missed our house.  We missed our garden...all of which were being watched by my younger brother, Daniel.

We arrived home after dark, exhausted, where we were greeted by a happy flurry of dog, cat and brother.  It was good to be home!  All the animals were in one piece, if not slightly spoiled by a week with their Uncle Daniel.  We grilled Daniel about the week.  Had everyone behaved?  For the most part.  Wow, did you clean the floors? Why, yes he had!  Were there any problems?  No, everything was fine.  How is the garden?  Good.  It looks incredible.

Sigh.  Too dark to go and see for ourselves.  It would have to wait for tomorrow.

After a night in our own bed, we got up, grabbed our coffee and headed out into the back.  He was right.  everything did look amazing.  The pansies were having a color riot.  Sharon's veggies were sprouting away and the fig monster (who got a winter buzz cut...more on that later...maybe) was sending out new branches and leaves.  All was well.

Except for the succulents I had planted a couple weeks ago.  The ones I'd picked and planted for one reason only: because they made me happy.

With the exception of a couple fragments, you could hardly even tell they'd ever been there.  Sometime during the week, Holli (it must have been Holli) had chased a squirrel through the planter and obliterated my little succulent sanctuary.  It wasn't her fault.  It wasn't Daniel's fault.  It was just a crazy dog and a squirrel doing what dogs and squirrels do.  But I was suddenly in a dark place.

Why?  I'd handled the destruction of the agapanthus just fine.  Because I had made a decision about those succulents.  I'd committed to them as something that made me happy.  And they'd made me really happy. Silly happy.  And now, I felt stupid for having allowed that to happen.  I should've have known better than to be so happy about something so easily destroyed.  I KNOW this lesson:  "Never be too happy, because it will only hurt more when it's gone."

There are many, many things I remember about my abuelita.  Wonderful things.  Things I would never want to forget in a million years.  Like the way she laughed.  The way she moved through a kitchen, as if the entire room was just an extension of her arm.  Like the way her hands felt in my hair and the way she'd take my arm when we were walking.  Till the day I die, I hope I always think of her when I pour milk into my coffee or when I smell cream of rice.  But this one thing, I wish I could forget -- the way she'd pull me aside and tell me with all the experience of age:  "Cuidado, nene.  Don't get attached.  You're going to get hurt."

Even the best of us say stupid things.  Even the smartest of us take those stupid things as gospel.  But I will unlearn that lesson.  I will start by admitting that being happy about my silly, weird looking succulents was fun and worthwhile, no matter how long they lasted.  I will move on to telling myself I cherish how much I loved my grandmother, even though it will always hurt that she's gone.  And I will finish this new lesson by being glad that Sharon and I have allowed ourselves to have another year together, to make it to another vacation, and to learn that it's okay to love the things we most fear to lose.

Saturday on the Farm

My father grew up on a farm in Tillamook, Oregon...as I write that, I realize he speaks surprisingly little about what that was like.  I would imagine that, if I'd grown up on a farm, I'd work it into a lot of conversations...but then, maybe I think that because I didn't grow up on one and If I had, I would just as soon rather not talk about about it, thank you very much.  Hmmm.  I'll have to ask my father about it and see if he avoids the subject.

Regardless, having been unexplicably deprived of any firsthand accounts of life on the farm, I am left free to create my own ideas of what it must be like...with a little help from movies, books and the few times I visited a farm in Mexico.  As I am the foremost authority on what I think, I can tell you at least one thing with the utmost confidence:  Life on the farm is hard.

That's right, take it from someone who thinks he knows. Farm life is not the wonderworld of fresh milk and produce many think it is.  Sure, when I look back on what I imagine it was like to grow up on a farm, I have to admit it was great to know exactly where everything on your table came from.  But mainly, I remember how much hard work it was.  From the crack of dawn to the end of the day, it was one chore after another.  You do these chores because you have to, whether you feel great or not, because if you don't the whole process breaks down.

Today was a day on the farm.  True, I wasn't rolling out of bed at the crack of dawn, and there weren't cows to milk and eggs to collect...but I felt like crap, and there was stuff to do.  Spring is coming faster than I can say "Vacation in Mexico" and the garden needs some serious prep work, the deck (did I tell you I'm building a deck?) has been stuck in "almost finished" mode for weeks, and my creek...we won't talk about my creek right now.  Long story.  OH and for the record, there are crops to plant and see to in our backyard but, on our farm, farming is women's work and Sharon has her own blog. Hehe.

In any case,there was work to be done and I really wasn't feeling it.  But I took a guilt trip out back while we drank our coffee and had to admit it was time to get down to it.

So we did.  Sharon turned soil, hunted slugs and ants, and threw down some seed, I cut back all the overgrowth and dead branches that had accumulated over the winter, then sat in the sun and drove screws into the decking.  We worked good and hard, straight through lunch and into the early afternoon.  At the end of it, though my head was pounding with a headache and I was cranky with hunger, I looked around and had to admit I was glad I was there.

See that's the thing about life on the farm.  I work hard, whether I want to or not, but at the end of the day I can look around and feel like I did something.  In the spring, you will see beautiful new growth and probably not have a passing thought about the green waste bin full of clippings I filled today.  You may never notice the straight lines of screws across the deck by the creek, but I know what it felt like to kneel on the wood and drive each one in.  My knees hurt, by lower back aches and I have a crick in my neck, but I feel good.  Remember that, the next time you're sitting at your desk, staring at a computer screen doing something that means nothing.  Read what I wrote today, feel the bruises on your knees and the stiffness in your back, and remember what matters most.  Your real life.  So suck it up, do your chores during the week, and maybe we can spend next Saturday on the farm, too.

 

 

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.

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.