Plant Porn

For gardeners, ’tis the season for temptation. Willpower wanes as my mailboxes, electronic and otherwise, fill up with the newest varieties of plants – all promising to be spring sensations. I fall for this every winter. Marketers know how to exploit my dormant desires for the smell of new life, for color, for something new that promises to outperform the old.

I’m a sucker for the copywriter’s claims. I forget to consider whether these plants want more than I am willing to give: Are they deer-resistant? Hardy in my zone? Not too thirsty for water? Need deadheading? Require heavy fertilizing? Staking? These are all things I am not willing to do anymore, but I don’t remember that until the plant arrives. Slick, glossy catalogues confuse.

I could learn from my mistakes, but if history is any guide, I won’t.

I fell head over heels for the Bloomerang® lilac when that debuted as the must-have lilac. Its claim to fame – it bloomed all summer and into fall. The copy said, “this prolific rebloomer needs a little deadheading.” I was hyperventilating, horticulturally speaking, when I first saw it in a catalog, but it turned out to be like a high-maintenance date – all that deadheading. It needed lots of fertilizer, too. It took a summer rest before reblooming – a long rest. And while the copy claim, “the smell of lilacs all season,” sounded like heaven, I was discombobulated by their smell in October. Lilacs are the smell of spring, and it felt strange to smell them in autumn. My olfactory glands never made the adjustment.

One of the things I love about lilacs is that they’re no work. That Bloomerang was more work than I was willing to put in. This wasn’t the fault of the lilac, but my own failure to set realistic expectations. I had to admit this: When I bought it, I was all set to fall in love. No facts would deter me.

Some variegated plants require more upkeep than I can manage, too. They keep reverting to their non-variegated origins. To get them to fulfill their promise, I pinch them back. There’s a limit to the amount of pinching I have time for these days, and every time I pinched them back my husband noticed I made a pinching and pursing expression with my lips. It was a full-body experience that was leaving me with some unattractive lines.

If I could be satisfied just to look, and not be so impulsive, I wouldn’t have this problem.

I swore off Bloomerangs, and I returned to the old-fashioned lilacs that asked nothing of me. And every year I return to some of the best-performing and low-maintenance plants. Like long happy unions, they perform well no matter what comes along. They ask so little, year after year: the sedums and the nepetas. If you have a problem area, plant them and they’ll thrive.

I’ve been seduced by so many new varieties. One year I fell hard for Agastache Tutti Frutti and planted it in waves. In my smitten state I overlooked that not all Agastache are as hardy in my zone as I thought. This wave died. I returned to the more tolerant Agastache ‘Blue Fortune.” Other new loves of my life might as well have been planted with a flashing neon sign that read, “salad bar open.” The deer have cleaned me out more times than I want to admit. But just like my multiple mistakes in marriage, I’ve gotten better, horticulturally speaking. After learning the hard way, I am doing more research, and I ask the pros.

And so once more I renew my New Year’s vow: corral my desires during this fallow season.

But who doesn’t want to fall in love one more time?

The Seeds of a Broken Promise

The seeds my Mennonite ancestors brought from Russia changed America.

Maybe my ancestor’s seeds will join the corn seeds from the Cherokee nation, or seeds rescued from the Syrian civil war? They’re all stored at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. There’s room for 4.5 million seeds. Maybe they have room for my ancestor’s seeds?

Long before my ancestors knew the word biodiversity, they grew crops that were diverse. Their seeds offer more productive crop varieties—and they’re essential to farmers who must grow more on a warming planet.

My ancestors were asked to grow more under difficult conditions. First in Russia, and then in the United States.

When they left Russia for the Great Plains, they carried an insurance policy. In trunks, sewn into the hems of their clothing, and stuffed in their pockets—seeds.

The wheat seeds my Russian ancestors brought with them changed the Midwest. They perfected and cultivated a variety of spring and winter wheat in Russia that grew well on the Great Plains. It grew so well that it turned Kansas into the world’s leading wheat producer.

 But it started with a broken promise.

 Around 1762, my ancestors living in Germany accepted an invitation from Catherine the Great of Russia. They were asked to teach farming practices and turn poor land into crops to feed her growing masses. In exchange she promised these persecuted and pacifist German Mennonites religious freedom and exemption from military service. The Falk family made the long trek from Germany down to the Dnieper River, not far from the Black Sea in Russia. Disappointment followed. After draining the swamps and perfecting a new variety of wheat that brought record harvests, all promises were revoked.

Not ones to waste time over broken promises, they sent scouts to America to find a new home. And in the 1870s, America sent fliers to Russia to lure these famed farmers to new Midwestern territories. It was a two-way, transcontinental public relations campaign funded by the largest landholders, the railroads. My ancestors-built trunks for their belongs and they left Russia. But only after loading up with seeds of all kinds: mulberry, Russian olive, vegetables and herbs, watermelon, dill, summer savory, sorrel and wheat.

They arrived in planting season ready to plant. After the locals gawked at these “Rooshians,” they gawked at the waves of wheat that covered Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas and Minnesota, where my ancestors ultimately settled. These “Rooshians” had turned the Great Plains into the breadbasket. The granary of the world.

Wherever the Russian Mennonites went, they worked and worshiped hard. They were highly literate, peaceful and frugal, and they were known to break into song freely. One local reporter observed, “One of the pleasing features of the Russian presence in our town, is their singing. All have good voices. And none have any hesitancy in displaying their vocal accomplishments.”

And they stayed through droughts, depression, and swarms of grasshoppers.

I was swapping family stories with my uncle, and he told me he rescued a small seed packet from my grandparent’s belongings after they died. He believes this packet came from his Russian grandparents. Written on the outside are three German words: von Kleine Weiss – “from small white.” Are these seeds from a small white melon? Small  

My recent family research has introduced me to ancestors I’ve wondered about. Farther north, my Norwegian ancestors were busy too. I have yet to discover what they were doing. Raping and pillaging has been suggested. I’m still working on that branch of the family.

Lately I’ve been conferring with these Russian and Norwegian ancestors I never knew. If my uncle sends those small white seeds to the seed vault, my two-family trees will unite. I wonder what those “little white ones” will become? Juicy little white melons? Maybe the next generation will know, but I can’t stop thinking about them and salvaging seeds of my own.

Hard pressed by the pandemic, pestilence, rising temperatures and sea levels, stronger storms, wars, and world’s largest number of people on the move, what we leave behind and what we save matters.

There are so many seeds to save, and no time to waste.

Learn more about the Svalbard Seed Vault buried deep in Norway’s permafrost.

Trailblazers in Trousers

I was still cutting roses shortly before Thanksgiving because November’s higher-than-average temperatures gave us a longer-than-usual growing season. When cooler temperatures finally arrived, a discerning neighbor commented, “You have pants on for the first time since last spring!”

I have the freedom to garden clad as I like—and I like to wear shorts or a skirt. Hard as it is for my granddaughters to believe, there was a time when a woman could be arrested for wearing pants.

In 1938, a kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles arrived in court to testify in a burglary case and ended up in jail. All for wearing slacks. Before Helen Hulick could give her testimony, the judge ordered her to go home and come back to his court “properly attired.” As in a dress. Hulick had other ideas. She returned to court in slacks. The judge warned her that she could be jailed if she did not comply. She returned to court again attired in slacks, but with an accessory—her attorney.

Back at my grandparent’s home in Mountain Lake, Minnesota, women were going about their business raising food and children. Mountain Lake was a tight-knit community formed when Mennonites emigrated from Russia. In their new home, these Mennonites clung to each other and their religious customs. The older women still wore bonnets. Women were not allowed to drink, smoke, dance, go to movies or wear their hair short. And no slacks, for sure.

My grandmother, Hilda Falk, was an outsider. She arrived in Mountain Lake during the Depression with a nursing diploma signed by William and Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She worked at Mountain Lake’s first hospital, and she wasn’t one to let customs hamper her knowledge and common sense. She wore slacks. But to wear them, she had to make them. That’s how uncommon they were.

But there’s more.

My grandmother made slacks for other women too. A nearby neighbor, Linda Shriock, gardened on the busy main street in her dress, and the prairie breezes lifted that dress most days. The locals gossiped and laughed at Linda’s lifted dress. My grandmother had other ideas. She sized up her neighbor and sewed her a pair of slacks.

My mother still remembers Linda Shriock’s defiant words, “Mrs. Falk made me slacks and I intend to wear them.” And she did. Gardening in slacks until the end of her days.

Here’s to the Helen Hulicks, Hilda Falks and Linda Shrioks. They prevailed. They were the pioneers of pants: trailblazers in trousers.

Learn more about Helen Hulick’s day in court and her trailblazing career in education.

Linger

Sun and earth conspire: We linger in the autumn light and gather food and thoughts before we turn inward for the shorter days ahead. All living things conspire too. Astronomers, poets, animals and birds know to linger, to change, to move on.

On the great migratory bird route in Nebraska, where my mother lives, our recent phone call was nearly drowned out by thousands of blackbirds stopping to tank up. Soon the butterflies will stop by.

Here in Connecticut, the brilliant goldfinch changes and his gray molt appears. Soon he’ll fit our fall landscape.

I’m molting too: shedding my bathing suit for Patagonia fleece. As I cut back the catmint, the daisies, the almost everything, I leave the billowy heads of joe-pye weed and the sedum for the birds. But the ground is not bare; a little leaf litter never hurts. We all need some cover.

Astronomers track and announce another fall equinox—days and nights are equal in length. Sun and stars hold equal pull. As the autumn stars appear in the sky, I now dream in flannel. But the poets know best how to chronicle the “dying of the light,” and how to corral September’s light.

TO THE LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER W. S. Merwin

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know

that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

Copyright © 2005 by W.S. Merwin

Yes, there is more to say about the slant of the autumn light on the water, the corn, the goldfinch . . .

We see it fade, and we linger for one last swim through the sun-warmed waters to the island to see the turtles stacked like dominoes on the log. And then we pack up.

Dead Heat: Running on Empty

In the contest to see who can drive the other crazy – quicker – we’re in a dead heat. I may have taken the lead when I asked my husband to alphabetize the spice rack.

But in the contest for living dangerously, he’s ahead.

When we were first dating, my husband recounted several incidents when he ran out of gas. For a bit of context, he was 50 when we started dating and these stories were from his 49th year on earth. I was shocked. One time, maybe, but multiple times? How does that happen? He explained that the light that signals that his gas tank was running low had malfunctioned. That gauge said he had 35 miles to empty, but he thinks it must have been wrong. Hmm, how did he know this? And when he had his car serviced, did they check that gauge? “What?” he said. “What service?” I lost my head with that line of questioning.

He asked me to think of my own experience. What experience? I’ve never driven with a light on that says you have 35 miles to go. Now it was his turn to be shocked. Why not live a little and take a risk, he chided? The teasing was relentless, and so I relented.

On our next drive in the country, I let the low gas light come on. My hands were sweating. But instead of the number of miles to empty going down as we drove, they went up. Maybe my husband was right? Maybe the gauge on my car had malfunctioned, too? The more we drove, the more miles until empty. We started on 35 miles to empty, but after driving 15 more miles we had 55 miles to empty. My husband found this funny; I was alarmed and sweating profusely. We were in a rural area far from a gas station. I asked, “Are you going to jog to the nearest station if we run out of gas?” His reply, “You need the exercise more than I do, with the all the ice cream you’ve been eating lately.”

I recounted this to my mechanic who services my car every 7,500 miles. “You must have been on hills?” Why yes, we were. “The computer that calibrates the number of miles can be greatly affected by elevation. Did it stay consistent on flat roads?” Why yes, it did.

And just for the record, I’ve never broken any bones or had any surgeries. We don’t have enough space and time to chronicle his broken bones and surgeries – and don’t get me started on the time he asked the surgeon if he could be awake to watch his knee surgery. And did I mention bites from black widow spiders and his close encounters with water moccasins?

Which brings me to another kind of running on empty – my goal this summer was to eat more ice cream. After months of isolation, I wanted to hit every local dairy and ice cream shop and eat until my tongue and lips were so cold I could not form consonants. (Thit! I mithed that.)

Whenever we stop for ice cream, as soon as we get home he weighs himself – he wants to maintain his high school wresting weight at 81 years of age.

Last week, in pursuit of my goal, I stopped at a local dairy and bought two scoops: sour cherry and pistachio. He informed me that he doesn’t like nuts – irony is alive and well.

He Chose Us: Part Two

What do you call an eccentric, fiery orange cat with a chink in one ear? Van Gogh. What else? On his first trip to the vet, as she examined him, she turned to us and said, “Wow, he’s purring.” The vet, who also turned out to be Dutch, thought he was remarkably large, and said that while all cats have different personalities, he was “a great cat.”

And he lived up to that every day.

He mastered our patterns in no time—meeting us at the driveway when we returned from our daily swims, joining us for drinks on the patio at 5:00 p.m. While the vet suggested he remain an indoor cat, he had other ideas. Since we coexisted with bobcat, fox and coyote, we decided to bring him in at night. Every night, he came when called. A devoted homebody, he kept time better than we did. Inside he was just as discerning; even though we often could not remember which cupboard held the tuna, he knew. He would sit next to the correct cupboard to remind us. And wait.

His demands were few—please don’t disrupt my nap and bath times. When workmen arrived, he would slip a paw under a lower kitchen cupboard, pull it open and dive to the deepest, darkest corner out of reach. “Hey what was that?” the workmen would ask as the cupboard door slammed shut. If he saw us wheel out our suitcase before a trip, or his cat carrier before a vet visit, he would dive into the cupboard quicker than we could grab him. On those occasions, we’d lash the cupboard shut with rubber bands around the doorknobs. Luckily, he didn’t hold a grudge, and was quick to forgive.

He hunted everything. The birds bothered me the most. I decided to put a collar with a bell on him to at least give the birds a warning, but he always returned home with no collar. We should have named him Houdini. After three collars, I gave up. The garden was littered with collars.

Van Gogh’s methods and manner of stalking his prey were both distressing and astounding. He would corner full-grown rabbits on the patio, patrol the stone wall for chipmunks from above so they couldn’t see him, and spring into the air when anything flew by. He was so diligent at keeping the chipmunk population in the neighborhood under control that one spring, following a chipmunk orgy, a neighbor asked; “Could you please send Killer over?”

Every morning when I would let him out, he would head up the back steps above the stone wall and survey his vast territory. One morning I saw him hauling his 16 pounds up an eight-foot trellis after a newly fledged robin. I intervened. If a hummingbird visited the bee balm, he’d leap into the air and attempt a takedown. Once, he followed me inside to the basement and pounced on a cricket. By the way, crickets are crunchy.

The week before he became ill, a friend warned me that his personality would change. But it never did. Right up to the end he lifted his head for one last chin rub. We dutifully complied. After all, he chose us, and we will always be grateful.

He Chose Us: Part One

Word must have spread fast.

That explains the queue of catbirds at the birdbath, and the cheeky chipmunks darting in and out of the stone wall and sunning on the top stone with abandon.

Van Gogh, our beloved cat, is dead.

For a decade, he was my constant garden companion, supervising every move. Then he’d head indoors to oversee the domestic chores. The ground still bears the impressions of his favorite napping spots: among the catmint, under the yew hedge, his favorite sunny corner on the patio. Whenever I see the catmint fluttering, I still expect to see him emerge.

He could find an afternoon shaft of light and enjoy its warmth while multitasking. He’d nap and supervise my planting with one eye open. Such were his talents.

We didn’t go looking for a cat.

But 10 Januarys ago, we saw a large orange-and-white cat eating a cardinal beneath our bird feeder. Then we saw him again. And again. We called our nearest neighbor to find out if they had seen him. “We don’t see him. We don’t want to see him. We already have two cats.” As I topped off the bird feeder daily, he was waiting. It was a brutal winter. I went online to learn how to build an outdoor shelter, we put out cans of tuna during the day, talked to him, tried to get close. Every night he disappeared. But he came back every day.

Over the next weeks, we could see that this cat was clearly starving, but too afraid to let us get close. We put his food in the backyard, and we backed off several feet. Every day we backed off less. After many days my husband stayed right by his food bowl and he ate with him standing there. My husband wondered what would happen if he tried to pet him? Would he run? Attack? He was shocked when he just purred. After that, when he would see my husband at his computer through the office window, he’d jump up on the windowsill and demand that he come out and play. He was better at getting affection than most people I know. I decided to let him in the house. He clawed wildly at the door to get back out.

But he came back in. Eventually. We now owned a cat.

The Lilacs Are Here

Their scent loiters in the kitchen, the bedroom—a scent registered from birth—of life, of possibility, of love.       

One whiff ignites a memory of a drive across the Minnesota prairie with my grandparents. Lilacs were everywhere: at abandoned farms, next to a leaning barn, by a fence, ringing an outhouse, flanking the foundation of a deserted farmhouse. We took cover in that farmhouse to watch a thunderstorm swab the prairie. “This must have been the kitchen,” my grandmother said. “The mistress could wash her dishes here by the window and smell the lilacs,” she surmised. 

After the storm, we emerged to a prairie perfumed with distilled lilac.  And there, growing in the center of a rusted old threshing machine stood a lilac bush bent with rain. Its partially opened petals pressed against the earth. The delicate blossoms belied their endurance through brutal Minnesota winters.

Farmers planted long rows of lilacs as windbreaks. My grandfather remembered a fire that jumped from house to barn, and then burned two mile-long windbreaks of lilacs. Their smoldering embers gave off an incense of lilac that lasted for weeks.

We stopped at a cemetery, and atop a grave, a lone sprig of lilac. My grandfather, quick with numbers, noted its occupant was dead 17 years— but her husband, his name inscribed next to hers, was still among the living. “Ya, he must have just been here,” he said, remains of his German accent still evident 85 years later.

Yesterday, I listened to a friend’s regime of pills: morning antidepressant, evening sleeping pill. The possible side effects of the antidepressant: “may cause thoughts of suicide.” The side effects of the sleeping pill: “may cause morning grogginess.” I bring her a bouquet of lilacs, hoping their perfume will alter her state.

My prescription: May be taken before meals, after meals, during meals, at bedtime, and upon rising. Take three times a day, 30 times a day, 100 times a day, or as often as you like. Possible side effects: None. But you may want to sing, want to loaf, want to banish futility, want to surrender to their perfume . . .

So this is just to say: Work is suspended today. No cell phones. No emails.

The lilacs are here.

Feeding the Soul Through Smell

If I had two loaves of bread,
I would sell one and buy hyacinths,
for they would feed my soul.
(Mohammed)

The hyacinths are in bloom. My neighbor, Diane, whose intelligence is matched by her honesty, admired them, and so I offered to cut some for her to take home. “No thanks. They smell better outside than inside,” she said.

Fragrance outdoors can be overpowering indoors. Illustration: one winter I decided to fill a large bowl with paperwhite narcissus bulbs and force them to bloom. When I shared this with my non-gardening friends, they accused me of being violent. “How the heck is that violent,” I asked. “You’re forcing them,” they said. We’ll have a lesson on forcing bulbs another time.

Where was I?

Back to that bowl of narcissus on the table. Next to the couch. One night I went to bed at my usual time and my husband stayed up until his usual time. After midnight, he woke me and said, “I smell burnt rubber in the living room, and it’s making me sick.” I followed him downstairs, and began checking outlets, extension cords, smoke alarms, and recently burned candles. My nose led me to the source: the paperwhite narcissus, now in full bloom. I asked him to stick his nose in the blossoms and inhale. He made a retching sound as he grabbed his sides.

I gently moved the retching husband aside, grabbed the bowl and placed the narcissus outside. The husband went back to reruns of Gunsmoke – I went back to bed.

Every new scent creates a deep-rooted connection with the present or resurrects a memory. Scent: a portal to the past. Buried deep in our subconscious, scent converts present to past – and returns lost loves.

Almonds & Gasoline
My grandmother kept a bottle of Jergens lotion under her kitchen sink, and every night after washing the supper dishes, she would apply Jergens to her hands and arms. That distinct almond scent brings her back. To conjure up my grandfather, I head to the nearest gas station. He dispensed gas and stories for 60 years on the corner of Highway 60 in Mountain Lake, Minnesota. Everything he touched smelled like gasoline.

Because I didn’t drive much last year, I went to the gas station one day just to evoke him. As soon as I began pumping gas and the fumes hit me, there was “mein Grossvater.” His subversive smile. I could even hear him ready with a story in his English merged with his mother tongue – Plattdeutsch – the low German his grandparents brought over from their Mennonite village in Russia.

Spring scents open that portal to the past. I enter. Each new scent summons a memory. Now is the time to feed my soul. Now is the time for sensing over doing. To take in the scent of self, of others, of life.

Recent rains have distilled the lilacs to an intensity that returns my long-departed grandmother to my side on one of our prairie walks. Lilacs transport my husband back to his childhood, too. He recants getting off the bus and smelling something that brought a rush of happiness. Lilacs.

They’re the best antidepressant I know.

Untethered - Part 2

I feel the earth’s rhythm.

Born in the hum of the growing season in a small farming community in Minnesota, the time to plant, grow and harvest seeped into my soul. My ancestors worked and lived off the land for centuries. And even though I toiled in a different line of work, those rhythms ground me.

My brain still registers the earthy smell of newly tilled soil ready for seed and rain. I can still hear the corn grow on hot humid days. Harvest time quickens my pulse as I recall the race against the dying light and the weather. And then there was the autumn drone of John Deere combines working the fields all night. I fell asleep to those sounds – a lullaby to the harvest.

Nature restores my circadian rhythm, battered by too much stimulation and light. She’s the ultimate authority on time.

For years I became disconnected from time in my creative work. I also became untethered from time in grief. There’s no timetable for grief – it takes whatever time it needs. It forces its way into every waking and sleeping moment. You’re not in control. Past and future become muddled. You spend the present in the past to see and laugh with the departed. The future? You can’t evoke a future without them. You’re in no man’s land – severed from the roots that held you. But tend you must.

I’ve been sleeping more, my internal clock confounded by these pandemic rhythms.

They slumber too, those 60 bulbs I planted last October. But they know when it’s time to force their way up through the sodden earth and the leaf litter.

They know the right time.

Untethered: Part 1

I don’t know Tuesday from Saturday. And it bothers me.

I guess 40 years of unrelenting deadlines offered comfort and structure. Sure, I reserved the right to sometimes balk at those daily deadlines, but my new untethered state has left me confounded and confused. I’m retired in a pandemic. There’s a lot of latitude.

 Time isn’t what it used to be. Yesterday – or was it the day before – I went to the post office. As I was going in, a woman coming out asked me if I knew what day it was. I shook my head, hoping to dislodge a date. I was stumped.

 Years of creative work didn’t give me loads of experience with free time.

There were daily deadlines, client meetings, research to digest, a branding or positioning session, brainstorming, input, developing creative concepts, new input, client revisions, analytics, new input, focus group testing, new input, client revisions, new input, a rehearsal to present the creative to the client, new input, client revisions…

The only thing that didn’t change was the deadline and the word count.

Once I got this revision from my client contact: “The president doesn’t like the second sentence in paragraph three.” “What doesn’t he like about it?” I asked. “Who knows,” she said. “Just fix it.” And yes, this really happened.

Friends who worked 9:00 to 5:00 didn’t understand why I couldn’t meet them for dinner or drinks, why I stayed until midnight to rehearse for a client presentation, why I went to the office most weekends. Creativity on demand was inconceivable. “When will you be done?” they’d ask. It was hard to describe the all-consuming nature of creative work. I would try. Yes, there are deadlines because the advertising has to run, the website has to be finished, but the creative work happens all the time. That’s how you get the best creative work.

I think you have to work in a creative endeavor to understand what I’m talking about. You love it or you get an ulcer or high blood pressure. Or both.

My husband, who knows a thing or two about creative work and deadlines and has the high blood pressure to prove it, loves leisurely drives down Connecticut country roads. On our last drive, we had a choice between two routes. “Take this one, it’s quicker,” he said. We realized the truth at the same moment – we have all the time in the world. We looked at each other and laughed.

We took the longer route.

Dreams Deferred

I thought I would be further along by now. I thought the dreams of my youth would be fulfilled.

My dreams were lofty: I wanted to understand the internal combustion engine. I used to change the oil and filter on my car, but things have gotten crowded and complicated under the hood. I just learned how to fold in both side mirrors. You’re probably thinking that’s happened to you with your new car? My car is a 2013. It’s loaded with “city driving” features that allow the driver to rein in those mirrors while squeezing into a tight city parking spot. I used it once, while driving through a flock of slow-moving turkey buzzards.

Then there was my lifelong dream of finding 10 women that loved themselves just the way they were — no ifs, ands, or buts. I think I was inspired while listening to that Billy Joel song, Just The Way You Are. One of those songs that sticks in your head because it’s so bad.

 “Don't go trying some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair, mmm
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard, mmm
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are.”

What a load of hooey. 

I came close to fulfilling this dream when I met Marge, but then she said, “But I need to lose six and half pounds.” Cindy came even closer, but she found her loathing for her large ears disqualified her from true self-love. I was in the running, but there was that glaring deficit: I didn’t understand the internal combustion engine. 

But perhaps my biggest letdown was not fulfilling my most fervent dream.

I wanted to learn to dance the paso doble. That sexy Spanish or Latin American dance, with its hand gestures, was so seductive. It sure beat the polka that I saw danced to or stomped to at the polka festivals in New Ulm, Minnesota. Those annual festivals were held right up the road from the Schmidt Brewing company. Where I grew up, polka bands were prolific, and few were more prolific than Whoopee John Wilfahrt and his band. At the start of every Polka fest the MC would announce: “Whoopee John Wilfahrt and his band will play.” The crowd laughed  between bites of sauerkraut. 

But I was drawn to a dance that originated in the bull ring, not the beer hall. I believed Latin, not German, blood ran through my veins. I dreamed of flicking my hands and skirt to the dramatic paso doble. I tried a few moves with a college friend, and we nearly knocked each other out. We probably should have worn safety glasses, since I poked her in the eye twice. 

I confessed these dashed dreams to my husband. He pointed out that I was doing a lot of confessing for someone who wasn’t Catholic. I suggested he might be the man to fulfill my dreams; together we might learn the paso doble? He’s very competitive so I tried another angle: We might win a contest and earn a title? He reminded me that he’s “rhythm-impaired.” It’s not an official diagnostic code, but the inability to feel the rhythm. Any rhythm. Even in a polka. He claims to be German, but I wonder. I offered a cure: “Darling, practice the paso doble with me.” He refused.

I’ll have to settle for the Dutch Hop, the dance my German-Russian ancestors brought here from the Volga. It’s in my DNA. Dutch is a mispronunciation of the German word “Deutsch.” The German brand had taken a beating after two world wars, and my exacting ancestors took advantage of this mispronunciation and let it slide. That may be the only time in history that my German ancestors let anything slide.

When I shared my dreams with a much younger friend, she seemed surprised that those of us on Medicare still strive to understand complicated mechanical things, still yearn to bust some new moves, still work daily to love ourselves just the way we are.

I release myself from the strain of trying to fulfill all my dreams. Maybe in another life I’ll dance the paso doble? Maybe at 80? For now, I’ll settle for this title: Perfecter of the Dutch Hop.

Adventures in Communication. And Tax Returns in the Tub

Photo of snow geese by Richard Bristol

Communicating is hard.

After 30 years together, couples fall into some bad habits when they’re trying to communicate. I have no idea why I wrote that last sentence in the third person. Let me start over. After 30 years together, my husband and I have fallen into some bad habits while trying to talk to each other. I’ll be the second to admit I’m wrong; I often talk to him when he’s in another room. He catches every other word. Surprise.

Here’s what I mean. Yesterday, he got out the bucket (or as he calls it, the pail) and the mop, and mopped the kitchen floor. God loves a man that mops, and so do I. As I was heading out the front door to get our mail, I said, I’m going to get the mail.”

He replied, “I didn’t leave out the pail.” 

Confession: I was in the living room and he was in the kitchen.

I did some research on active listening, which said: “Active listening is the process of listening attentively while someone else speaks, paraphrasing and reflecting back what is said, and withholding judgment and advice.”

In the spirit of active listening and togetherness, I thought it best to talk to him in the same room and within a few feet of each other. While eating lunch, I asked him to paraphrase this: “What do you think of the photos my dad sent of snow geese?”

His paraphrase: “You want to know if I like that fleece you bought me for Christmas.  I do.” 

See a pattern? 

One-sided, you say? Well, I’m the writer and I’m not going to squander an opportunity to communicate with you, dear reader, and not come out smelling like a rose. Am I not the hero of my own destiny? Maybe not while eating lunch and trying to communicate with my husband, but I am, at least at the keyboard.

My husband is chattiest in the evening, usually when I am in the bathtub washing my hair. That’s when he decided last year to tell me how much we owed in taxes. Between the suds and the water in my alimentary canal, I missed the word “thousand” that came after the number five. 

The best communicator in the family is our cat, Van Gogh. He’s suffering from cabin fever in this pandemic, too. This former outdoor adventurer sleeps most of the day. We have to wake him up just to get him outside for some exercise. If he hears us walk by while he’s napping, he yowls for love. And if you don’t scratch his ear he yowls some more. Then he turns his other ear toward your hand and presses it hard to make sure you even out the love. After he’s satisfied with our symmetrical ear-rubbing, he lifts his chin like a supplicant at communion and demands a chin rub. 

When we move near the cupboard where the tuna is kept, he plants himself at our feet and lets loose unrelenting cries. He doesn’t give up until the tuna appears in his bowl.

He’s trained his pet humans in record time.

I have no idea what people are talking about when they say they miss communicating and that they’re bored. They can’t get together with family and talk, go to the gym, a restaurant, you name it. They talk on Zoom, and they text and email, but it’s not the same. 

Adventures in communication overflow in your own home. And they’re anything but boring. 

Early Winter Deep Cleaning

Time to clean out those songs stuck in my subconscious. I can’t remember where I put my keys, but I remember ...

 … And that’s Uncle Joe, he’s a-moving kinda slow at the Junction – Petticoat Junction.

“Love, exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you.”

Well, you came. And you gave without taking.
But I sent you away. Oh, Mandy
Well, you kissed me. And stopped me from shaking. 
And I need you today. Oh Mandy.

Green Acres is the place to be
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide. 
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

Danke schoen, darling, danke schoen
Thank you for all the joy and pain (the Wayne Newton version)

The candy man can
The candy man can
The candy man makes everything he bakes
Satisfying and delicious
Talk about your childhood wishes
You can even eat the dishes 

It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini
That she wore for the first time today.
An itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini
So in the locker she wanted to stay.
Two, three, four, stick around we'll tell you more!

Tiny bubbles (tiny bubbles)
In the wine (in the wine)
Make me happy (make me happy)
Make me feel fine (make me feel fine)

Season's End

I was on the hunt for a hydrangea, “Vienna,” but fate steered me to “Endless Summer,” though I knew this would be his last summer.

I had already dug up some lady’s mantle from my garden. The nursery had some dark begonias for contrast with the lime green flowers of the lady’s mantle. I snagged a few bags of mulch and set off to meet the man and his inner-city garden for the first time.

He had started his garden over 20 years ago, the first time he lived in this same apartment. The mulberry tree he planted was loaded with fruit and it was covered with starlings tanking up. It was a rare sight in the heart of the city; this fruit tree surrounded by blacktop on three sides. The tree was so close to his apartment that he could reach out and pick the mulberries. He had never expected the tree to survive when he and a friend planted it 20 years before. Then he moved west, but now he was back. In that same apartment, but with a diagnosis that gave him a year to live. If he was lucky. He wasn’t complaining—he was focused on his garden.

He had already planted a hydrangea and some lilies, both flanked by bishop’s weed. In the center, a busy bird bath. His small garden sits below his balcony at the edge of a large parking lot. He and his dog like to sit and watch the birds and his neighbors come and go. “I enjoy the view,” he told me.

I looked around for a hose. “How do you water your garden?” I asked. “I get a bucket from the kitchen sink, carry it through my dining room, and pour it from the balcony.” I guess this was working, since everything seemed to be surviving, but barely. Rain had been scarce, and his friends were trying to figure out how to keep the garden watered since he now needed a walker. One friend was devising a way to run a hose from the kitchen through the living room and hang it over the balcony.

I recounted this to a neighbor, and she wondered about all that effort for someone who would not be able to live to enjoy their garden. But she’s not a gardener. Gardeners don’t take this view. We plant for today. Sure, we hope to have a garden tomorrow, but we know the earth is always better off with a garden.

In my own garden I was struggling to keep new trees watered. It had been one of the hottest, driest summers on record—a severe drought. The weight of an early spring snowstorm had felled two large trees in our front yard, and I was watering the replacements every few days. The soil was like powder. They’re slow-growing trees. It will take years for them to produce shade. But planting anything is an act of faith; I have faith that these trees will offer shade for those who come after me. They’re going need shade.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” (Greek proverb)

Enjoy the shade.

Moving On

It has been the most prized and well-used present that my husband ever gave me. He knows I love beautiful, practical things. Things that last.

 But he had one question, “What color should it be?”

“Red,” I answered, as I recited the poem, The Red Wheelbarrow.

“so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.”

 —   William Carlos Williams

That was 25 years ago. And so much has depended on that hardworking wheelbarrow. Grandchildren were ferried around the yard, plants run up the back slope to their new planting grounds, loads of rocks and weeds added and subtracted, along with mulch, manure and an occasional snoozing cat.

But it’s time to let go of that red wheelbarrow.

For months I asked: When will it be time to retire it? And the answer came: When you spend more time patching and repairing the wheelbarrow than using it.

Time to move on. It’s been a long and happy collaboration – my wheelbarrow and me. I still have many collaborators in the garden: weather, plants, soil, worms, insects, fungus and hummingbirds. And there’s that dozing cat supervising it all. But I’m trying to let go of the old and embrace the new.

The new wheelbarrow will take some getting used to. It’s not as nimble as the old one. Instead of one small wheel in the front, it has two large wheels centered over a rustproof aluminum body. I can no longer squeeze into the tight spaces in my tightly packed perennial garden and dump mulch like I used to. But those two large wheels give it greater stability. On the steep slopes in our backyard, I can park it sideways with a full load of mulch and not worry that it will tip over. It’s also “flat tire-free.” The old wheelbarrow tipped over on uneven ground. Flat tires were common. The rusted metal bottom had so many holes in it that mulch fell through, leaving a fine trail of mulch wherever I went. It was ideal only for sifting mulch.

And you know those old rusted wheelbarrows that become planters? That won’t be happening here. But maybe I should keep an open mind? Maybe the poet intended a sequel about how much depends on an old, rusted, red wheelbarrow, loaded with flowers?

I’m on my second wheelbarrow and my second husband. That’s it for both.

An Unexpected Sound

Grasses sway, the catbird calls, and the quiet invites me into my dark backyard garden. That’s when I hear it.

The chainsaw.

A neighbor is using it to cut back tall grasses. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard heavy-duty power tools in that garden. My friend Patti told me that she and her husband found a Sawzall ideal for cutting an old shrub out of the ground. What could have taken hours of digging and pulling was dispensed with in a matter of minutes. They only had one question: “Why didn’t we think of this sooner?”

Tough gardens call for tough tools.

Twenty years ago, I planted several large grasses on a slope. As the grasses aged, they developed “male pattern baldness” – no grass in the center, surrounded by a ring of shaggy grass. My husband doesn’t appreciate this description, but you get the picture. I decided to dig those grasses out, armed with a strong back, an axe and a pickaxe. My husband watched me from his office window and wagered on the grass winning the daylong battle. He never made that mistake again. At midday, if someone had offered me explosives, I would have used them. The root system was about five feet underground. Plant a grass and it’s a commitment for life.

But with declining memories and defibrillators, maybe power tools aren’t such a good idea. I’m still haunted by the sight of my 80-something neighbor on her roof cleaning her gutters with a leaf blower. The whole neighborhood was alarmed. We ran to the bottom of the ladder and begged her to come down.

Age and wisdom go hand in hand, not power tools in hand.

And that brings me to the ladder rule: No husbands over the age of 75 are allowed on ladders. Period. No exceptions. I found one there a week ago daydreaming. Daydreaming and ladders don’t mix. Mix yourself a drink and call it a day.

And don’t even think of a power tool on a ladder.

I love the spirit of doing things for yourself. But when the spirit is willing and the body isn’t, just forget about it. You’re scaring the neighbors, and your wife.

The Garden in a Pandemic: The Sound of Chipmunks Chewing

I can’t imagine a pandemic without a garden.

When folks ask me if I minded the “stay at home” order last March, I tell them I was too busy planning what to relocate, cut back and replant. Then I got busy doing everything I’d planned. It was my only refuge from thoughts of the worldwide misery.

By early summer, there were so many walkers in our neighborhood who stopped to talk that I sorta missed the peace and quiet of March. One morning I was making a dent in six yards of mulch when a young woman and her dog walked towards me. As she approached, I backed up to keep her at a six-foot distance. “I have to talk to someone, and you seem like a nice person,” she said.

Some walkers stopped to admire my garden. Some stopped to let their dog use it as a toilet, and others had questions: “What’s the purple plant?” What do you call this big red thing? What’s this?” Pointing to my callicarpa bush. But many asked, “What’s your favorite plant?”

And most told me how much they enjoyed my gardens. Some told me about their gardens. I dug up and gave away a few plants to some.

With fewer cars, we see more wildlife every day. Bears, foxes, bobcats and even a muskrat heading for the nearby Farmington River. We’ve been spending most of our time outdoors on the patio. Van Gogh, our cat, joins us as he patrols the long stone wall for chipmunks. I’ve spent so many quiet hours on that patio in the stillness of this pandemic, no roar of jet engines overhead, that I can hear chipmunks chewing deep in the stone wall.

I still haven’t figured out how to weed in some of the farther reaches of our backyard where a bear came through. I don’t want to turn my back and be surprised. You’ll never hear a bear approach; their muffled paws must be velvet-wrapped because they make no sound. A squirrel makes more noise than a bear.

When a bear stood right before me above our patio steps, I advanced instead of retreating. He was a wonder to behold. He let me know I needed to back off by stomping the ground with his front feet and coming towards me. When people approach I back away. When animals approach, I lean in. Even when it’s a bear. But not for long.

The earth has gotten a break from humans during the pandemic. For the first time, you can see the Himalayan mountain range from more than 100 miles away. You can even see Mount Everest from Katmandu, over 120 miles away. Los Angeles has its cleanest air since 1980. Even the Ganges River is cleaner.

So how do we survive a pandemic without a garden?

Oh, and the answer to the question about my favorite plants? Persicaria “Red Dragon,” rodgersia and callicarpa.

If you can’t find any of them at your local nursery, stop by and I’ll share mine. If you’re overcome by the urge to weed, feel free. Just wear a mask, stay six feet away – and watch out for bears.

Hanky Panky: Haul Out Your Hanky

 As we were running low on Kleenex®, my husband asked; “Do you have any handkerchiefs?”

Do I?

I brought out my collection: one with ornate lace tatting, and a large man’s handkerchief with geometric stripes woven in navy and sky blue on a crisp white background. Here’s one embroidered with my initials. There's a simple linen one trimmed with a single row of yellow lace. There’s a 100-year-old linen one that’s hand-finished, and a white cotton one embroidered with hot pink flowers.

“Geez,” he said. “I just want to blow my nose.”

My grandparents always carried hankies. My grandfather had one that smelled of gas and oil from 60 years of running his gas station. He’d wipe his nose before he’d wipe the gas off his hands. Or was it the other way around? Those were hardworking hankies. Once, when he was checking someone’s oil, I saw him fish into his pocket and wipe the dipstick with his hankie. How on earth did my grandmother ever get his handkerchiefs clean? They must have been flammable. Some were retired and became rags in their next life.

My great Aunt Ida pulled a hanky from her full bosom. She was a “weeper,” and after anything remotely touching was said, her hand dived down her bosom and retrieved the hanky. She would dab her eyes, and then her hand would disappear back down her bosom and return the tear-soaked hanky.

A friend of mine, who’s spent 45 years in the classroom, reaches deep into his classy corduroy pants pocket whenever his allergies cause his nose to drip – which is nearly year-round in New England. He’s a class act with his beautiful ties and cashmere sweaters. His handkerchief is the mark of what my ninth grade English teacher would call “a gentleman and a scholar.” He certainly is both, but with postnasal drip.

Seems like hankies might be better for the environment than Kleenex. I’ve had time to ponder this. I haven’t done the research or the math, but Kleenex start as trees and we need all the trees we can get.

Virgin forests are disappearing faster than voting rights.

I seem to recall that Greenpeace ran a campaign a few years back called “Kleercut.” That campaign got Kimberly-Clark to stop cutting virgin forests to make Kleenex. I hear that once used, Kleenex can’t be fully composted because of the chemicals used to get them white. I don’t know why they are white. I don’t know why toilet paper is white either. No one asks me to weigh in on these weighty decisions.

I know what you’re thinking. Handkerchiefs aren’t as sanitary as Kleenex, right? But my husband and I each have our own – we share a bed but not a hanky. There are limits.

Handkerchiefs have nearly vanished; maybe it’s time to bring them back?

If you need one, I’m sure I have something.

Good Clean Fun?

Flight patterns have changed. In the backyard, there are no airplanes overhead. I’ve seen three foxes in the last two months on my back patio. Other wildlife is reclaiming their lost territory.

And the bird bath is busy. The distance between people and birds is short; our habits are not that different.

In many bird species, the male finds possible locations for a home, but the female has the final say. Makes perfect sense to me.

Yesterday, I took a break from gardening, and sat and watched the bird bath that sits atop a stone wall above our patio. Since the nearby stones were covered with water, I figured it must have been used recently. Maybe I had startled a private bather, and maybe if I sat quietly, the bird would return.

I didn’t have to wait long.

A robin landed on the rim of the bird bath, looked around and then took the plunge. She did some vigorous flapping of her wings and then hopped out onto the rim. She flew to a safe, high branch in the lilac bush right above the bird bath and began some serious preening. I looked away for a second, and she was right back in the bird bath. Water flying out onto the patio stones, she hopped up to the rim. Then she went back in the water. This was more than a bath – it looked like frolicking. No one spends more time in a bird bath than a robin. Trust me, I’ve done my research.

A pair of mourning doves stopped by. Their bathing is a bit clumsy, beginning with their entry into the bird bath – they fall into it. Unlike robins, they don’t do a very thorough job of getting water under their wings. It’s more like a short baptism.

Catbirds are elegant and fastidious bathers. One hop brings them into the center of the bird bath, and they manage to get every feather wet right down to their tailfeathers. Then, after four or five headfirst dips and lots of splashing, they lift their wet tailfeathers and show their lovely brownish red rumps.

A male and female cardinal arrived in tandem. He sat on a low lilac branch and let her bathe first. I thought he was going to join her when he hopped to the rim of the bird bath, but he let his lady have a long, luxurious solo bath. Such consideration and devotion are hard to find.

Humans take note.