For a REALLY big wish

Like, say, no more dandelions in the yard?

Oops.

The Gift of Perspective

Yesterday was a big day around here, when decades of record-taking show it's safe to plant tomatoes and other garden fare without losing them to frost. It was a graduation of sorts, releasing the little seedlings I'd cared for the last several weeks into the big world. I should have been excited.

Instead, as with a lot of things in my life lately, I was frustrated and overwhelmed. My job while Jeff hauled bag after bag of soil amendment (that's a nice euphemism, by the way) and tilled the garden plot was to plan out where we wanted what. I hardly could do it.

I got hung up on the villain vinca groundcover encroaching all around the garden boxes we've carved out of our jungle in the back. Trying to dig them out was just too much. I gave up in disgust.

"Why are you making this so hard?" Jeff wondered, still focused on the task at hand: planting our garden, not waging war with the vinca. 

Why indeed? Why was gardening yet another listed passenger on my flight from joy to burden?

In this area of my life, as in others -- child-rearing, housecleaning and more -- I think I falter because I've been trying too hard, wanting the outcome without savoring the process. I can home in on flaws no one else even notices.

Today when we walked home from church Elise pointed out the beautiful allium flowers in a neighbor's gorgeous yard. Hundreds of purple blossoms explode into a fireworks shape atop each giant stalk. When Elise said, "Look, Mom! It's like a purple dandelion," I smiled that she ranked this gem next to a seedy weed. You know, she's right. 

What follows is an essay I wrote for the blog Backyard Farming at this same time last year. Go figure. I'm sharing it because it's a lesson I obviously still need to learn and apply to my garden, family and life.  Because really, vinca's flowers are my favorite shade of periwinkle.

The Gift of Perspective

Through a child's eyes, everything is beautiful and worth sharing.

Taking part in a recent neighborhood cleanup, a group of us remarked that from a distance the flowerbeds we were asked to weed looked pretty good.  Only when we got up close did we notice all the fallen twigs beneath the bulb foliage, the smothering layer of matted leaves no perennial could burst through, the singularly stubborn blades of errant grass. 

The devil’s in the details, so the saying goes.  Suddenly there was a lot of work.

But it was a beautiful morning, and as I walked home afterwards I considered the time well spent.  I rounded the corner to my street.  As I got closer to home my eyes played tricks on me.  The farsightedly homogenous patches of green in my yard shifted into distinct forms, and – oh, no! – there were lots of WEEDS!

I walked around my yard, front and back, my eyes simply the window office for a furious little taskmaster list-maker in my head.  Oh, just look at all that has to be done! I lamented. Dandelions, bindweed and clover, oh my! I’ll never catch up.

What had happened? Naturally, bionic or not, the weeds had been there before I left that morning.  Why, all of a sudden, were the details so distressing to me?

I worked through the afternoon, hardly making a dent, I thought. The next day I sauntered into the shady backyard.  It was a day of rest.  Besides, the dress I was wearing almost kind of sort of stopped any chance of my picking up a shovel.  I sat on my lawn just to enjoy the blue birds and yellow-striped finches flitting from crabapple blossom to pine tree branch.  I leaned back, dismissed the weeds I saw and instead counted how many new raspberry starts have emerged.

You know, details.

Wait. Marvelous, glorious details.

Thoroughly refreshed, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I love working in my garden because of the progression. Further, being on the gardening frontlines gives me an unparalleled view of nature.  It is when I’m tending to the undesirable aspects of gardening, like weeding, that I tend to notice the grandeur of the small stuff.

It would be a shame if I ever finished my gardening chores. 

Tender-hearted

I thought I'd come to terms with my brother Ben dying. The intense, jabbing pain and debilitating bursts of grief that marked the early days and weeks have changed to a duller discomfort. I think about him all the time and wish he were still here. I miss him, certainly, but every passing day gets me a little more accustomed to living with his loss, to the point I don't even acknowledge any pain -- it's just how it is. (It struck me just now that I used the phrase "living with his loss" instead of "living without him.")

Sunday we had my parents and brother Matt over for Mother's Day dinner. Elise, all of 7, launched into a story about herself with, "When I was a little kid . . . " We immediately all laughed. Ben, the fourth child in our family (and eight years my junior), was legendary for peppering our dinner talks with things like, "Hey, Jenni, remember when you were a baby and you did . . . ?"

It was my mom who voiced what we were all thinking when she likened Elise's perception to that of our dear brother. I believe it was the first time since Ben's death that I saw his name come out of her mouth while shaped as a smile. It was a good moment.

I thought the peace I've been feeling lately meant I'd turned the corner from reeling unexpectedly. I thought I'd shored up my heart sufficiently from being repoked.

I was wrong.

Today I passed my town's cemetery coming home. I drive by it often, and usually without thinking twice, since it is on one of the main roads to my house. Today I weaved through a funeral procession as it crossed in front of me to enter the gates.

Oh, how sad, I thought, but still didn't personalize the experience. That is, not until I saw the pearl-colored hearse. Something about that sight, the color so similar to the vehicle of my brother's last car trip, made me instantly break down.

So quiet was my eruption of tears that my backseat passengers didn't even notice. I wanted James to interrupt with some random childish question but instead was left with my thoughts and the focus of the drive.

In less than a minute I could see my college track star neighbor jogging up the hill. I could tell it was him even far from the back because of his extremely tall, lean frame.

He, too, lost a brother this winter. I was jolted by all these images, one on top of the other, and what they represented to me. The cemetery. Someone's loss. Mine, and that of my neighbor, who was running. Climbing steep terrain. Moving forward.

Only when I got close enough to verify that it was indeed my neighbor could I read the black text on the back of his gray T-shirt: "REMEMBER."

And so I've been thinking all day. The best way to exercise the heart is not to close it off or shield it, or to think you're beyond being hurt anymore. It doesn't mean thinking we're strong because maybe instead we're numb. It means still loving, ever expanding, ever contracting, draining and filling.

Just as important as remembering my brother is remembering how my heart hurt when I lost him.

Serves me right

This is a cautionary tale, the irony of which may prove to bite me if I linger too long here.

I'd been fiddling with my last blog post and had just pressed the final button when I heard James call out, "Mom, Samuel's spilling the syrup!"

Sure enough, Samuel was artfully pouring syrup onto a plate on the floor. Yes, he used a plate, but come on, he's 1, and he can't color in the lines. I quickly scooped him up, threw down a towel, answered James' query that no, you can't have ice cream right now, and barged with Samuel first to the bathroom, then to his dresser for a new outfit. With no clean pants there, I carried a now sticky-free Samuel toward the laundry room.

En route we passed the kitchen where James -- no surprise here -- had the ice cream out and was licking a spoon. "James!" I scolded. "I said no!"

"But I didn't have any," he said.

Oh, really. In just the last few days James has gotten a small taste for lying. This time, with the evidence all over his face, all I could do was smile inside, set Samuel down -- and grab the camera. The syrup was too much of an emergency to think about documenting but this . . . well, this could make a great blog post.

"So tell me again," I said from behind the viewfinder, "that you didn't have any." He jiggled the spoon as he did, maintaining his innocence.

Note the faint but significant brown patch on his nose. Note, too, the navy and white picture of a house on the floor in the background. It's an important reference point for what comes next. Directly beyond my line of sight, which shifted as soon as I lowered the camera and stepped away from James, was this marvel: Samuel drawing on the floor with a marker (a Sharpie, of course).

Aaargh! I give up.

P.S. Baking soda works wonders.

Taking shape

April 2009

After nearly four years of living here, I feel our scary front yard is finally taking shape. There's still a lot to do, but I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed (where to start?) and discouraged as I once did. A few huge projects, with a million smaller efforts, are starting to pay off.

The spring bulbs have thrilled me. I planted just a handful, really, compared to the rest of the still blank page, but what beautiful punctuation marks they turned out to be. I only wish they could last longer.

For the benefit of family who've gone the whole nine yards to help our yard, but who don't often make it to our home, here's a look at the then and now.

First, a funny story. Jeff and I recently went to a local garden center and picked the brain of a very helpful, very eager clerk. We sought suggestions on what plants might do well in our front yard. Our requirements were these: something that could withstand the intense west sun, help anchor and retain the slope, and thrive in the heat without a lot of water.

The clerk mulled this over for a minute then said, "How about junipers?"

Oh, you mean like these?

October 2007

Jeff and I laughed dismissively. Can you just imagine? We'd be the laughing stock of the neighborhood for sure if we replanted what so many of them helped us yank out in the first place.

October 2007 -- A huge crew of neighbors and family members helps pull out our expansive mess of 40-year-old overgrown pfitzers, using big chains and powerful trucks.


October 2007. James and Emma sit in the newly bushless yard, now a visible landmine of huge lava rocks. I worried I'd traded one eyesore for another!


The clerk was certainly right: the bushes meet all those needs -- ours were virtually carefree. (Kind of in the sense of the elephant in the room no one wants to notice.) But for us they were also gnarled and ugly and crowded and garbage traps and critter refuges and spider nests. I think the only watering I ever did was to try to spray those constant webs off. When I told the kids we were simply starting our Halloween decorating early, no one bought it.

Jeff has done the bulk of the muscle jobs in this yard. He pulled all the big lava rocks out -- three truckloads worth. He installed a new sprinkler system, because the old one got ripped up with bush roots. This involved digging trenches all the way into the backyard to access the water lines there. He also built the retaining wall and laid the sod (which we hope lives up to its water-wise label). His newest project is the cedar garden box next to the house, where we will plant tomatoes and other veggies. Getting Jeff on board for a front yard garden display was a tough sell, but the success of the garden I sneaked there last year did the trick. Now that it's his idea this year, we get a fancy box!


April 2009. In front of James, strawberries meander down the slope. Daylilies are in front of the retaining wall, and just off the right edge of the frame is a peach tree we planted in my brother's memory. I hope to fill the slope and the parking strip with perennials I started indoors.

Like I said, there still is a lot to do, but I'm starting to enjoy this front yard now. Which is more than I can say for housework! Thank you again to all who have helped us.