After a whirlwind return to Massachusetts, I’m returning to a week or more on the road venturing to the infinite places that aren’t my home. It’s an exciting time right now. Politics looms large in the collective consciousness, as does hurricane Gutav, which is barreling toward the Gulf coast as I now write. The Republicans have just pretty well called off the RNC, and my editors are making scrambled eggs out of their brains trying to figure out how to send the right photographers to the right places. So down in the cargo hutch of this airplane is a red suitcase packed with nice black slacks, pressed shirts and mascara. Next to it is a sister suitcase containing, among other things, walkie-talkies, industrial-strength D rings, a water filter and Cipro.
I know where this plane will land, but I don’t know where I’m going, when or how.
As I said, it’s an exciting time right now, especially for a journalist.
The mood is very different in my garden. I returned home last Friday evening to discover, not the riot of ripeness or pestilence I feared, but the result of a steady week of peaceful churn. There were babies everywhere, all asleep. Erik spotted our first cantaloupe, the first of an otherwise unproductive crop of plants.
The pepper plants decided to try it all over again after a rough patch with the snails.
And my stubborn, brave squash just won’t give up, and have pushed out ever more tiny squashlets, powdery mildew be damned. I just shake my head and wish them luck.
From now on, I plan to plant radishes every chance I get. Multiple plantings each season. Wherever I can. I’m not even sure if I like radishes, but the sheer joy the seedlings exhibit upon germination is worth the effort and space. I bent down to check on their progress and to evaluate how many went the way of the skunk salad bar and was met with a tiny, green, full-throated “Yippeeeee!!!”
They are so lovely, and so excited to be alive. I love radishes. I don’t care if they’re awful. I just love them for this un-ironical reminder of the joy of living.
Oh, God. Bad pun alert: Lettuce all be like radishes.
Sorry…sorry.
One of our squashes fell victim to some furry animal with sharp teeth. It’s now in the shed, where I hope it will cure without rotting.
We harvested a bunch more pole beans and I made the tuna salad with them again. I think that’s going to be a staple around our house. It’s easy, healthy, cheap and delicious.
And in the 48 hours I was home, I made four loaves of bread. That sounds ambitious, but it is so incredibly easy and so sinfully scrumptious when hot out of the oven that to only make four loaves was restraint.
We ate two of those loaves with caprese salads, made divine by just-picked Brandywine tomatoes and expensive-but-worth-it buffalo mozzarella. I am in love with summertime garden eats.
The compost needed a turn, and in the process of turning it, we managed to explode the composter in half. That was fun.
Lesson learned: if using an “Earth Machine” brand composter, glue the damn thing together before filling it up with stinky stuff.
Mostly, I just puttered about outside, barefoot, dirty, and probably not wearing enough sunscreen. I admired the ginormous spider, sniffed the jasmine that’s just starting to flower along our fence, and tried to absorb as best I could the very different priorities of dirt, sun and plants.
Our left brains are tyrants. They narrate constantly, and not just the negative events of our lives. They ruin the restful and beautiful moments as well, like red-faced sports announcers, and they just never shut up. Well, almost never.
My left brain retires after a glass of red wine.
Sometimes, it shuts up for a blessed minute toward the end of a great yoga class.
But I think the reason I’ve fallen so completely in love with gardening, has to do with that insistent narrative. It’s not that gardening turns off the voice, but it tames it, and the telegrams streaming through my consciousness begin to describe what is actually happening in front of me.
That – flower – is – gorgeous. The – tomatoes – smell – great. I – feel- sorry – for – the – squash. How – amazing – is – germination. I – am – incredibly – lucky.
It’s a different time zone. A different sort of planning. No deadlines, more just a continuum. And no black and white.
Rather, I just see a million shades of lovely green.
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2 comments:
I loved this post.
Thank you, Laurie. It is such an honor to share my thoughts with you.
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