"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or our misery depends upon our disposition and not upon our circumstances." — Martha Washington
Category: Garden
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Sunday Afternoon
Sunday, late. I'm a little tired and unfocused. Or perhaps it is just hot. It has been a good weekend even if I missed my Saturday blog post. Apparently deciding to arbitrarily change my writing and/or posting time is not as simple as it seemed.
Saturday was good, if perhaps overly ambitious. It seems that is occasionally how things roll; there are ambitious days and less ambitious days and hopefully we can embrace both as they come. But the ambitious part of the day is fodder for another post perhaps.
Instead lets just enjoy a few contented moments. Tikka and I took our walk very early, around 6 AM and I snapped the photo above soon after we left the house. We left early enough that it was still cool when we returned, and neither of us was eager to go indoors.
I worked in the garden while Tikka supervised. My reward for cleaning out the herb garden was discovering a thriving mound of sage. The bonus was finding the first ripe blueberries of the year. Those ripe berries were artfully hidden, but I managed to find a dozen and a half or so. There are hundreds of berries on the bushes; I hope the birds will share. The first blueberries of the season are a treat worth savoring. I loved the way the yellow lilies lean into the blueberry bushes, and combination of blues and yellows.
Today I waffled on an invitation. I wanted to accept. But I had obligations. I felt I was behind on my own completely-arbitrary and self-imposed lists of things that "must be done". But somehow my heart said go. And so I did. and had a lovely time by the way. Precious moments. Always worth savoring.
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Flowers on a Foggy Morning
It I cool this morning and the air is filled with fog. As Tikka and I walk the air I soft and gentle, the breeze like a whisper on the skin.
The fog shroud the world in mystery, in a kind of flatness that awes and confuses the senses. Holding its secrets close, waiting for discovery.
Colors, once revealed seem intensified. That which we once might have simply passed by positively glows.
The everyday becomes a precious jewel.
Perhaps we simply need to be reminded.
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Garden Update
Summer has arrived. It has gotten hot, and if I am working in the garden it is in the early morning or late evenings. In the evenings however I seem more likely destined to provide a supper feast for hordes of biting insects, so morning remains my time of choice. I almost pulled that calla a few weeks ago, having forgotten that I had planted it, and still not used to living in an area where it would come back. Now I am happy. It is like a little hidden gem which I see every day when I check the mail. It may eventually be dwarfed by the shrubs and have to be moved, but for now it is a happy surprise.
The daylillies that were planted last summer are doing well and blooming profusely. And the hundreds of daffodil leaves are finally dying back, and disappearing behind the daylilies, so my front yard is once again looking a little more kempt. But the simple truth is that my flower beds really push the boundaries of being neat and formal. Truthfully, the main front bed, close to the house, has crossed the line.
I am rather content with it, however. It is definitely my garden. I am more content since I have cut back the dandelion flower stalks you see reaching up through the roses and pulled and dug their roots as best as I could. Never suppose there is not some plan in plant habits. Both dandelions are rooted right next to, in fact pressing up against and deeply entangled within, the roots of the two roses. It is a constant battle to keep them contained while neither killing the roses or ripping my flesh to shreds. Otherwise I love the ways the flowers wander throughout each others territories, making a tapestry of color and shape.
The side yard is still not fully planted. There are a few bare areas remaining, as I have allowed myself time to assess the light and let the yard evolve. The blueberries will be ripening soon. The crepe myrtles are not yet in bloom, and I'll probably put in more daylilies simply because it is a long bed and I love them so. But I won't really know until I actually plant, and then, until I see how the plants settle into their spaces.
Hiding in the back of the stand of lilies and daylilies to the front of the crepe myrtles is this Martagon lily. From the street it rather disappears into the brick, but to anyone walking or sitting in the yard, it glows. Seeing it feels like a secrete pleasure.
Which remind me that the agapanthus planted in the front is about to bloom. At the moment it is still small, but I recall from New York that it will take a few years to reach full height, at which point it will no longer be dwarfed by the low azaleas, although it height-wise it will blend in with the hydrangea on the other side, which also serve to protect the agapanthus from winds. Never mind. I will enjoy the resulting combination of blues. Last year the agapanthus never grew visibly larger than my index finger, but I know it was growing an extensive root network. I was thrilled to see it come back, am thrilled to see a bud.
I'm a little further behind on the back flower beds. We've had two good rainstorms lately and the unfinished walk is a sea of clay mud, as are the upper beds. The wet makes some areas easier to dig, but it I also slippery and treacherous on the hill, and I can't work on the beds without being covered in clay. Hopefully that will all be fixed soon. I don't think Tikka minds much. The weeds give her more shade to hide beneath.
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Small Rebellions
During my absence, I've been doing a lot of things, and this is good. It has been a process of rediscovery of sorts. But I'm not writing about that today. You will have to wait.
Today is about unfinished business, or about the fact that I finally got my act together and figured out what to do with the planters my grandfather made. It meant rearranging the furniture on the screened porch. And somehow it took me a while to wrap my head around that. I also needed to change the cushions. The covers were in fine shape, but, despite having outdoor fabric over them, the cushions themselves were disintegrating. This may be something to address in the future. Or it may just be the price of using inexpensive cushions from Lowe's (the source of my porch furniture). Apparently there will be more research and decision making ahead. But not this summer, at least concerning cushions. Besides, without thought, learning, change and growth, what is the point of life? Is there life at all without these things?
But it is too early in the morning for questions without answers, or at least for contemplating same. Instead it is good to sit on the porch and enjoy the early morning air. By moving the seating to be on the diagonal, instead of lined up flush with the perimeter of the room, I can admire the garden from every seat. This of course, makes me want to sit on the porch even more: with morning coffee, curled up with a book enjoying the scent of honeysuckle or the perfume of daylilies, with a glass of wine in the evening, and if it is cool, a fire.
The irises out back have been blooming profusely. This is their first bloom, and I had feared that I had lost them after my neighbor, only attempting to help, weed-whacked the hill behind my house. The irises were in a defined bed, but I can see how the leaves look much like grass. He was worried about weeds in our lawns. I am not, still. Apparently I have no great interest in a perfect lawn. I had considered that the hill would make a lovely wildflower garden, but obviously those plans were also dashed. I now take a more considered approach, realizing that although my preference is toward a more informal look, I live in a neighborhood of formal and defined gardens and compromises must be made.
This year at least, I get to enjoy the irises. And there is clover in the lawn on the side of my house away from the neighbor. He keeps the lawn between us in perfect glory but I rather like the clover blossoms. I like them enough that even though keeping clover out of the flower beds is a bit of a pain, I still would rather deal with that than poison the heck out of my lawn, besides it is not, technically, my responsibility. Most of that lawn is common area. If the neighborhood associations cares enough to do something about it, they can. I choose not to. Every week the clover blooms, is mowed down, and blooms again. The blossoms make me happy.
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Bright Flower
My first ever clematis bloom!!!
It is such a simple thing, and I really did nothing but put a plant in the ground last spring and have patience. I'd never had luck with clematis before, they never came back the second year. I guess I just never found the right spot, until I found this spot. And yet the joy of such a simple thing is profound.
Last week was a roller coaster of a week. I was up and down and all around. I withdrew when I should have been social, I blurted when I should have been silent. It was a week ruled more by my inner four-year old than by my older and obviously not always much wiser self.
The weekend has been filled with garden therapy: some weeding, some planting, some digging, some hauling around of heavy things. I am tired, and achy, and much more clear headed. Blossoms bloom when, and sometimes where, you least expect them. I cried in church today, but they were tears of joy. They were tears of gratitude, gratitude at having a place where I am welcomed even when floundering. May we all find such places.
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Anniversary of a Goodbye
Three years ago, on May 10, 2013, I said goodbye to my husband, my love, my best friend. I was blessed to be there when he died, to be able to hold his hand, to say goodbye. That doesn't mean that letting go was easy. Although I didn't fully realize it at that time, the hardest part was yet to come.
In some ways this anniversary has been more unsettling than the previous one. I wasn't expecting that, and it caught me by surprise, although now, in retrospect, I can see that the tide had changed, and I was walking on shifting sands. I suppose I thought that there would come a point where I would be a new me, resurrected in some sense, and no longer touched by grief. Of course that is silly and a bit naïve. But there is no knowing of the process until one is in the middle of it.
The weekend caught me by surprise and hit me hard. There were tears; but they were not predominantly tears of loss or tears of self-pity. There were tears of release also. And there were dreams, dreams of bondage, and chains, and of breaking those chains. There were dreams and tears and the calm certainty of "I am", of growth and healing. This is not a post about sadness.
I'm really not sure I can adequately put this in words yet; I am not ready. There are possibly moments in life, moments of transition, of evolution, even of a kind of resurrection of sorts, that elude words, that elude definition, that are important precisely because of the subtlety of the shift in perspective they bring about.
Losing a spouse is like being ripped in two: One tree formed of two, grown together, entwined; and then, suddenly, as if hit by lightening, divided into two again. But this new half is somehow less and more than what one had started with, part of oneself is also lost, and part of the other is retained. Yes, we are ravaged by scars, but we do not have to hide behind those scars; they do not have to be a constant reminder of pain. They may pain us on occasion, they may have introduced a bend to our otherwise upright stance, but that very bend could also be an opportunity for new growth.
George would have loved to sit in his chair in the corner of the sun room and look out at the garden. But I didn't work on the garden until after he was gone, couldn't work on the garden until after he was gone. He lost much in those final years, but he was not the only one, we both lost much. But we also gained much and found something that, despite adversity, might have otherwise gone undiscovered.
As for me. I am different and yet I am the same. But then, aren't we all, always the same, and yet different? Wounds heal, scabs appear, new skin forms. Sometimes life surprises us. Sometimes it doesn't, but it seems much better to be open to the surprises than to be dragged down by the disappointments. I am trying to let go of walls and things that distract from what is important to me now, but sometimes I'm not even sure I've hit a wall until after I've banged my head upon it a few times, or until a few tears have fallen. Only then it seems, can I say "yes, I knew that all along. Why did it take me so long to recognize it?"
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On Weeding Out and Celebrating Blossoms
Roses and azaleas in the front yard:
There was a period of a few weeks from the end of March through the first half of April where I committed myself to too many disparate things and I felt a little scattered. Some of those projects were things I really wanted to do, and others were things I agreed to just because I was available. Oh wait, maybe I wasn't really available, or maybe I shouldn't have been available. It seems a bit of recalibration and sorting is in order.
In the midst of all this busyness, a person whom I hope will become a friend, made a comment that brought me up short and set me to thinking. My interpretation of the comment was not at all the way it was intended, but it was what I needed to hear at the moment for it brought me up short and made me realize that I have been drifting along on autopilot, and although I realize, and say, that I am doing well, and am finally at a point where I can focus on myself, I have actually been rather bad at exactly that.
Two weeks from today will be the 3rd anniversary of George's death. 10 weeks from today will be my 58th birthday. In many ways I've gotten my focus back, my energy back, and my ability to be at home by myself with little risk of falling into the slough of despond. And yet, I haven't quite accepted that priority of self yet. There are things I want to pursue, things that make me happy, things that mesh with my gifts, talents, and inclinations, but I haven't always given myself permission to put myself first, to honor those gifts, to honor those needs. For a couple of years after George's death I needed to busy; I needed to be busy outside of myself, and I became very good at keeping myself occupied. Too occupied in fact. Too occupied with stuff that was really not the best use of my time and interests, too occupied with stuff that kept me from doing what I really need and want to do.
So I've been engaged in a bit of spring cleaning: physically, mentally, and emotionally. I am in the process of pulling out of a few things that aren't right for me, and I've put out feelers toward some projects that are better uses of my skills and interests. It is a good process, but sometimes a rocky one, and hence I've been a bit inconsistent here on this blog. Well, I've been a bit inconsistent overall.
One problem I've noticed is that once I give myself permission to set aside time for myself, for the things I want to do, I have to actually figure out what those things may be. It is a process of discovery, a process that yields occasionally surprising results. Something that, at a distance, seemed like a precious flower proves only to be a weed. Sometimes weeds prove to be the most beautiful flowers. It appears to be a slow process, but I am learning.
In the meantime I am in the garden again. At this point this involves mostly weeding, digging and grunt work. I am behind schedule. As you can see if you look closely, weeds still rule. The garden is not where I hoped it would be, I will not plant everything I hoped to plant. I missed an opportunity by occupying myself elsewhere, and yet at the same time, I have learned that some things I thought would be difficult are easier on my back than I had presumed. This has lead to dreams of grandeur and future gardens, although at this point there is really no evidence that I can keep up with the garden I have. But we shall grow together this garden and I, through whatever mis-steps and surprises come our way.
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Scattered Thoughts on Saturday Morning
The knockout roses in the yard have been throwing out a few scattered blossoms. It seems early, but I am attempting to cast my fretting-cap into the wind and simply enjoy.
The last of the "Meet the Candidate" luncheons was held on Thursday. As usual, it was lovely, and I very much enjoyed meeting the conductor for this week's symphony performance. The luncheon was held in a stunning mid-century modern house in South Knoxville, and as we were driven up the steep, narrow, and winding gravel driveway I could not help but think of my former home in Hyde Park. The weather is better in Knoxville, but I don't miss my driveway at all. Seeing the house however did spark a few moments of almost-regret. There were many similarities between this house and my former house, and some differences too, but the similarities were enough to spark memories. After all, for a long time I had simply assumed that the Hyde Park house was my forever-home, and there had been a brief moment of insanity, shortly after George's death, when, discovering that the Hyde Park house was back on the market, I had considered buying it and moving back.
As I said, it was madness, and I am grateful that I did not succumb. I'm not convinced that I believe in forever homes anymore, if I ever really did. What I loved was the home we made together, not the place itself. I suppose that is what I see as key. Places are just places. It is not that they are unimportant, but they are considerably less important than people. Home is with the person or people you cherish, and who cherish(es) you in return. The Hyde Park house was our home together; but it was home because I shared it with the person I loved and who loved me. It cannot be my home now. It would be a shadow house, built on memory and death. I don't mean George's death by that, but death to the spirit, the way defining oneself by the past tends to close the door on possibilities and therefore on life.
The luncheon house reminded me that I can't really do strict mid century again. I probably never could. It was George's house and George's style. Accommodations were made, as in all relationships. I suppose, since I was young when I married, and the house came with the husband, I've always assumed it was my style as well. And of course there are aspects of mid-century design I like, but not a whole house. I am far too eclectic. And I want deeply cushy chairs that I can curl up in cat-like. There you have it.
Thursday I met the conductor. Last night I attended the symphony. The performance was fabulous.
I've been feeling badly about not yet reviewing the Knoxville Symphony performance at Big Ears, and it does still plague me. It was a fabulous concert, and the orchestra got good reviews in the national press. Since that concert I have been thinking the orchestra should be doing more work like the pieces they performed that evening. We have an excellent orchestra, with talented and sensitive musicians, artists who are willing and capable of find the beauty in the new as well as the familiar. At big ears, I had been blown away. In the Dessner, the orchestra perfectly balanced the fine tension between sweetness and severity in the piece, and Phillip Glass' Cello Concerto #2, was stunning, performed with what I can only describe as a sense of delightful joy. That may not have been what the musicians felt as they were playing, but it was what the audience, or this member of the audience, experienced. It is easy to overplay the Glass, to make it too severe, and rob it of joy. That performance created the perfect meeting of modern and classical, minimalism and lush romanticism. It appealed to the head, but also to the heart, and there were moments when I was brought to tears, and a moment in the fourth movement when I could not avoid the chill the music brought down my spine.
And yet, in a way I got my wish. It seems to me that this week's concert had everything one could wish for. The lush beauty of Dvorak; Elgar's Enigma Variations, stunningly, and movingly performed; and a new work, Adam Schoenberg's Finding Rothko. In Finding Rothko, the orchestra reproduced that sense of music as something that creates a living space, a space you are invited to inhabit. The orchestra pulled it off beautifully two weeks previously with John Luther Adam's Become Ocean; a performance in which one could hear and feel the waves, feel the water rising around you, filled with power, and powerlessness, and even serenity. Finding Rothko was similarity well performed. Like a Rothko painting, except with music instead of color, one is drawn into the experience through subtle layering of sound and musical shading. The performance was almost like inhabiting a Rothko painting, like a vivid color experience of the same intense feelings that are engendered when one inhabits a Rothko space, such as the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Stunning.
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Carried Away by Simple Joys
I was enveloped in the scent of narcissi as I walked to the mailbox yesterday evening. I had just arrived home after a fairly long day and the sheer pleasure of the wafting perfume and the beauty of the blossoms surrounded me in comfort. Narcissus Sir Winston Churchill is one of my favorites, and I intentionally planted them precisely there, next to the front walk and around the mailbox, where I could enjoy their heady fragrance daily.
The joys of the garden, the joys of music, the pleasure of living in the moment, any moment, be it brief or prolonged. These joys are such precious gifts. And often these, the most valuable gifts, are composed of the simplest things: a flower, a song. That intense pleasure of that moment in the garden reminded me of the pleasures of listening to music, of attending the Big Ears Festival, and other concerts as well; but it also reminded me that those pleasures are not always intellectual, or meditative, or even perception-altering or life-changing. Often a simple song is all that is needed to still our racing thoughts for only a moment, to bring us to the present.
There were a lot of simple pleasures at the Big Ears Festival as well. Not everything was challenging or meditative. Saturday evening there was a lovely set by Lambchop, filled with Kurt Wagner's lyrical wit, and graceful, if occasionally convolutedly poetic storytelling. The concert was even more enjoyable because it was exactly what I would hope for and was not at all surprising. But perhaps that enjoyment was amplified by the perspective-shifting set they performed with Yo La Tengo the previous evening, a set in which Wagner and Kaplan traded roles on occasion, singing each other's songs, an act that rendered those songs simultaneously familiar and unexpected.
The Lambchop/Yo La Tengo concert followed a concert by Andrew Bird, another musician with whom I was only familiar through recordings. Bird performed quite a few songs from his new album, which based on this concert appears to be far more personal, with a little less of the distance I perceived in earlier albums, in which Bird seemed to occupy the role of occasionally tortured but basically world-weary observer of life. Nonetheless, the songs were beautiful, and listening to the band live really showcased their fabulous musicianship, although I found the volume of the performance actually distracted from the songs themselves. But I think I am in the minority in that opinion, and the concert was enjoyable regardless.
After Lambchop on Saturday night there was a performance by Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly, and Nadia Sirota, which was pretty much new territory for me. I am a great admirer of Muhly, but was mostly familiar with his classical work. The concert brought a new perspective, as well as introduced me to Amidon's fabulous fiddling and wonderful renditions of both traditional and more modern folksongs.. Sirota, too, was fabulous, and there is always a sweet spot in my heart for solo viola. It proved to be a fairly intimate performance that showcased the strengths and differences in the work of three very different musicians but who also worked well together as an ensemble. The three seemed to capture that magical junction where difference comes together in unity of sound, and where distinct and separate pieces are pulled together into a coherent whole, while at the same time maintaining something of an effortless feel of spontaneity. Not an easy feat to pull off.
In fact, I was reminded of this concert when I noticed these red hunter tulips poking up in the midst of this perrenial. The plants are different, the colors shouldn't go together, and don't really, and yet together they have a charm that is not really captured in this photograph – there are subtleties and harmonies that I can't capture on film, just as live music, and the interactions of the musicians, creates its own space, a space that can be unexpectedly beautiful.
I suppose however, the performance that resonated the most, that reminded me that I do in fact need to turn off that constant voice in my head on occasion and just let the music be present in all its joy, was the Kamasi Washington concert late Saturday night. Or was it early Sunday morning? Technically it was the latter. And I had gone home, cooked shrimp for coffee hour after church on Sunday, and even managed an hour's nap before returning downtown for the 12:30 AM concert. I was both wired and exhausted, more than ready to just float on Washington's simply joyously good-natured groove. I don't really have the words to write about jazz. But no other words were really needed. Sometimes you just don't want to have to think. Sometimes you simply need to be carried away.