The Creeps

Early in the morning, I open the front door to take Chancey out for his walk. It’s still dark. Sometimes it’s still. Sometimes the air is alive with buzzing, peeping, random flapping. Moths are butterflies who party at night. And it seems they have loads of friends. These are the original creatures of the night. They have a 'way more active night life than I have. I know. That's not saying anything at all. But they Hang Out. You can see them outlined on the house's screens, or feel the living shadows(?) on the ceiling. (the old dirty joke - that's not a Shadow…) I guess it's a cozy ledge just above my front door. More than once or twice, "things" have dropped to the ground as I open the door. I wait for the day one of those things drops on my head as I step out into the dark to walk.. It has to happen. Everything happens. Maybe just kill me now. When I have to walk Chance. in the rain, I step out into that cold, cold Florida downpour and it immediately goes down the neck of my coat, runs down my back, and I pray its just rain.

Jersey Girl

I’ve always thought that gardens are really just one garden, popping up wherever gardeners enable them. Now I know that the Boardwalk is just one boardwalk. At the beach. At the shore. Atlantic City. Now in Venice. I could go all cosmic on you. Okay, I Will ALWAYS go there at a moment’s notice. The moment is now. It’s just one Whole Earth, right? It’s the Mandelbrot scenario. Patterns repeat.  

Here's a picture: my dad pushing goofy-bonneted little me in a carriage on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. My grandparents had an apartment above a saltwater taffy place there. I remember the odd combo of wrestling flickering on the old black and white TV, and opera coming through on the radio. I think that ambience was Grandpa’s. Grandma Tuba was baking Mandelbrot (!) (they’re Jewish biscotti) and poppy seed cookies in the linoleum floored formica countered kitchen. Grandpa Dave smoked cigars. I can fondly remember that stinking stench and be tolerant, even misty at the assault . I remember feeding the pigeons peanuts from the Mr. Peanuts store. (Twenty’s me later referred to him as something rude…). There were lots of weekends spent strolling "the boards."


Much much later, there was a romantic ride on bicycle handlebars, clopping along on that same boardwalk. I was old enough to appreciate that romance when I found it. There was also faint aroma of cigar…


I’ve lived in Florida for years but Jersey still feels like home to me.


I’m a Jersey girl, in the Four Seasons /Sherry Baby kind of way. And I needed some garden paths. What was really needed was to replace my darling shredded newspaper mulch that proved to be darling AND delicious to the horrible millipedes that will forever haunt my nightmares. It held the weeds down, but those critters are milli-times worse than any weeds. Like bats: So they eat mosquitoes!? I say Bring on the mosquitoes!


Anyway, I needed paths. I looked at brick. I considered cement and shells. It had to be bare-foot friendly. I looked at recycled plastic. I looked at the cost of that recycled plastic and remembered Wood. Boardwalk Wood. A wooden Boardwalk! Of Course!



It had to lay flat to the ground. I’ve got snails. They like the cool dark underbelly places. And no snake hiding places, either. Have you realized? I’m the Squeamish Gardener. I love the nature. But only my selected selections. I think God could use an editor. No spiders. No rodents. Not even earthworms. They can stay. I’m actually glad to see them when they turn up. But I I’m not touching anything. They can beg, but I’m not going there. Have I mentioned that I’m single?



Now my Boardwalk is done. It took the guys about a week. As always, there are “outcomes” we never expect. The garden used to be all curves – curved pond/succulent garden, rounded spaces, curvy paths. But the boardwalk frames the beds. It’s geometric. There are corners. I think it must look like a beautiful organic finished puzzle from the tiny airplanes casing the joint from their pleasure flights out of Venice Airport. It’s so seldom that these outcomes meet and exceed our expectations.


And somehow, I have more space to plant things. I used to have to wait (not all that long) until something died, to open up space. But the meandering curviness just ate up the beds. The geometric controlled boardwalk whips everything into order. My garden felt wild to some visitors. (Not that that was a bad thing to me.) There was profusion and riotous color. But there was no lawn. I think that it was too different from anything that they knew.



It doesn’t look or feel wild any more. Now there are new corners, where there were none - to plant maybe some new white roses, or some other sentry/Wal-Mart Greeter plants to add to the mix. I got a variegated pony tail palm to plant at one of my new corners. I did hit the ever-lurking drain bed, but just have to believe this is the far edge of it. Time will tell if this is going to be stunted. I hope I remember it's challenge and think to move it someplace more hospitable if the time comes.

This past weekend my grandbabe was here visiting. And cartwheels and backbends happened. Up and down, back and forth on the boards. They say you can’t go home again.  But they might be wrong.  This was today meets yesterday. I’ve entered the time/space continuum, whatever that might be… I've always been a creature of this moment. I Be Here Now.

We all have so much to deal with. There’s not a one of us who gets out of here alive. We are sad, lonely, and ill, grief-consumed and suffering. But if we notice the moments, where nothing bad is occurring just for that one wonderful bit, and string them together, we have a shot at some Peace. I have so many really wonderful moments amidst the agony, that I can think at times, I really couldn’t be happier. Call me shallow. Call me Queen of DeNial. Just don’t call me late for Mandelbrot.

My daily bug

When I wake in the morning, I tippy-toe to the kitchen and lean in, flick the light on, and pause. I'm not a ballet dancer. (though a certain amount of alone-type dancing DOES occur…) I just don't want to step on Things that have "passed" in the night. The flicking gives the monsters a heads - up that their party is over. It's time to call it the day. And they need to get out of my sight. Those that can, do. Those that can't lie on their backs legs up and wait for the grim reaper. That's me. Eyes looking anywhere else, after assuring my target, with a wad of half-a-roll of paper towels, bend and gather, praying I don't feel, princess-and-the-pea-like, through the layers to the monster within. I've found this is also a good rule for picking up vomit and other atrocities. I raised some kids, grew up in the 60s. It's a handy hint. Just take it and don't ask questions.

Wherein I become One with Chocolate Mint

Been drinking "herb water" - Have had a peppermint plant out front, and just putting a sprig into my drinking water. Seems like it gets tasty right away! I drink the delicious herbed water, then add more to the same glass. A sprig can stay perfect for a couple of days, then be past it's prime and I start a new one.




Lately I've been using sprigs off my CHOCOLATE MINT plant. Yes. It's a perfect thing. It really is too, too! So, yesterday, I notice that the "sprig" is now stretching out of the top of the glass, growing new leaves. And there are little white roots out the bottom. I'm totally ONE with this plant. It's too cosmic. I must rest.

June 2010

Just haven't had the heart to blog since dead people started hitting the fan… It was a crappo winter in the garden, too, which normally would have been my Source of solace. Frost after frost killed stuff that had been there for years. Surprising stuff - porterweed, which isn't called -"weed" for nothing, and the huge, biggest in the neighborhood, frangipani tree that was planted right outside my window (for staring at when I should have been working…) Just lots of stuff. Some things came back after months of looking really bad. A little banana over in the far corner is back. Anyway, it was just rough-going for a good long while.

But I'm witnessing miracles again. Baby or female cardinal this morning, then three adults all at once. But two were males (bright bright red) and one seemed to be female, mate of one of the males. So, who knows? Not me. But I graciously accept.

Planted my two window boxes. Just went to the garden center and asked what was good to plant in window boxes. Could do that anywhere and for whatever reason - just ask and buy. They just carry what thrives in your area. They want you to succeed. Window boxes (and containers) are usually planted with annuals, so keep them watered, pinch off old spent flowers and yank whole plants when they look bad. Add some new soil (potting soil in bags ) every time you replant. Don't have to replace all of the soil every year - but would be great if you do. Also always add some timed-release plant food for flowering plants (stuff I buy comes in a plastic shaker jar and is all over Lowes and Home Depot, about $7.)

So, it's early June here in Florida. I've got the self-sown annual sunflowers going gangbusters and am still trying to dig out things that obviously aren't coming back after the frost. It's the hottest year ever, all over our dearly departing planet. We've got to take care as best we can - of Her and our Selves. Don't go out to garden (or do anything) at High Noon. Do it in the early morning or when evening cools as much as it does these days. Eat, drink, be merry. Or at least eat and drink. Let's try to cheer up - as Crosby Stills etc. said long ago: "Rejoice! Rejoice! We have no choice!"

If you want more of the dark ruminations, and hopefully some sunnier ones (can you ruminate in a sunny fashion?), go to my less-gardeny just- writing blog: http://ablogginn.blogspot.com (note extra "n" end of ablogginn)

A really really dark Florida winter

Began the season with the loss of a dear friend. (adding to a year of grieving for another good man already in progress…) Can it be that the garden is a reflection of the horrors going on inside me? No. I don't think I'm that powerful. I know I'm not powerful. If thinking the good thought was enough, we'd all be in Paradise right now. But frosts happened, more than one. Even more than two. And they're still coming this day of the supposed "last frost date" in the Land of the Flowers. I've stopped being able to look out my window, usually a rescue tactic from inner turmoil. It's been so cold I haven't been able to put in much swing time. Chance and I do squeeze in some moments, each of us in our quilted, padded coats. (Okay, so his is PINK! He can handle it. HE knows he's a boy…) (Mine is blue, now that I mention it, and my name IS Andy. And I had no hair for the first 3 or 4 years of my life… but I'm not confused, at least not in THAT way.)


But the frosts came. And the air is just cold. And it's totally gloomy. I think the inner gloom gets reflected in that I just don't have the patience or the interest to be out there. Even if it was sunny. Nothing is growing anyway - but the weeds coming up through the mulch.

The poinsettias brought home from the grief house are waiting to be planted, still alive, on the front deck. The garden looks more dead than alive to me. I guess most of it will come back in the spring. Or some of it. I have trouble caring, really. My closest confidants have descended into the world of pain. I share their grief as much as I can, but it is theirs and too exquisite to touch. My suffering is huge to me, but it pales in comparison to what they are going through. I can't add to their grief, anxiety, just pain in general. Where is my flood of negativity supposed to go? Writing is good. Good thing nobody is reading this. (If you are reading this, then, thanks - and stay nonjudgmental, will you?) Anyway, I hope the gloom will ease some with the coming of Spring.

I do have flashes of just being here, just now, in this moment. And, if I can just use my eyes and ears, and not my heart or memory, I can see (and hear) that Life is going on in it's own beautiful perfect way. But while Life itself is perfect and knowing, I am not, not in my superficial, ignorant self, and I AM suffering and my friends don't need my stuff added to theirs. So, again, I write.

Swing Time

Just dragged myself in from the front porch swing. Remember Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin inhabiting the same body in All of Me? - wanting/needing to be in two places at the same time. It had gotten so dark the streetlights were coming on. A perfect day for me begins with lolling on that swing in the pre-dawn and seeing the streetlight on the corner of Zephyr and Gentian slowly fade, like its retrieving its glow, calling it inside at the end of the night. Then I'm back at the end of the day, when it shines it's light again. The bugs start their dinner (that would be me) and I finally have to admit surrender to the dark and the itching and go inside.

I’ve been living here for YEARS now, - much of the time spent on my swing. The yard has gone from ratty unkempt lawn to a mulched and floriferous hunk o’, hunk o’ Paradise (to me, anyway…) Now the swing creaks sometimes and so do I. I lie there so long I'm just about frozen in position. Over those years, the wood of the swing has molded to my shape. I struggle to sit up. My Grandmas' voices come out of my mouth: "Oy!"

The swing is on the front deck of my house. It's my front-row seat. The garden wraps around the house - (no lawn.) I've got some castor bean plants at the far edges that have finally grown tall enough to block out my view of the neighbors. I’m a captive audience sometimes to the sound of them living in their hunks o’ The Garden /Motor Shop/ Parking Lot. Their cats - and I'm talking about DOZENS OF THEM - parade by and drive Chance to distraction. Too often he's sent /tossed back into the house in disgrace. (Stop your &*^* BARKING!). I guess we're not all that mellow, either.

The deck is where the seeds sown snooze, keeping me company until they germinate. The new seedlings keep graduating pot-size-wise until they’re ready to either plant out or meet their destiny in some other way. I sit on the swing and watch them grow. Time sometimes doesn't fly when you're having fun. It slows and seems to stop.

I sit on the swing and watch my grandbabes play and grow and the time really does fly by. We've cozied up in this swing and read and rock-a-bye-babied each other. I push, gently rocking. They stare up into my eyes or close theirs. When they get to push me, I hold on for dear life while they feel the surge of power coursing through their little bodies. The wall behind the swing has dents where the swing and I have whacked it over and over with their exuberant shoves until they learned a little constraint. Of course, constraint hasn't the thrill of a screaming Grammy - (Take it EASY! Don't HURT ME!!!!.) and they're not so interested any more. But how many kids can say their grandma taught them to cackle? Now I have to beg to rock or get rock-a-byed. (My daughters didn't realize they didn't have to be rocked in my arms until they were in their 20s…)

I bring my coffee out with the latest library book or magazine. Follow the drips. Or I just sit and rock. I'm good at being alone - it's just a little too often now.

And music! My tunes keep me good company. I’m the proud owner of a downloaded library of EVERY SONG I’VE EVER HEARD . When it was all new, for one brief shining frenzied moment - the downloading was free. Now I pay Amazon or Itunes and I'm (relatively) glad to do it. I can find just about anything I can think of. - I've got Groucho and Bing, the Beatles and the Black Eyed Peas. I love it all. I used to use a boom box out here on the deck, but the Bose Knows it can't be beat. I blast those tunes out open windows and doors and rock out on my swing or dream along. (Those romantic lyrics have ruined me.)

At these ages, though, we can swing, head-bang, boogie, ballroom dance and otherwise humiliate our kids in SO MANY WAYS. (They pull into the driveway, witness atrocities, and try to silently pull out before they're noticed.)

When Molly's here, I still have my coffee out there, but I wear my new Ipod and listen to my darling John Pitzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, their show, Radio Deluxe, downloaded from the computer. (Find it and them and you'll also find Ella, Frank, and anyone old or new playing the great standards. Swing on, I say!) They broadcasted live from Tanglewood a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think I'll ever recover…

I’ve swung with a sweetheart here. Sitting, you know, in that old fashioned, hand-holding way I listen to the wind chimes, the squeaky-shoe frogs and feel enfolded in gratitude to be part of The Garden and It All. Talk about living in the moment. (Of course some of those moments are in the past - so I'm confused for a change.)

I've planted myself on that swing when my heart was broken, too. I've hobbled out there while recovering from the latest "bug", dragged a "bum" foot, and that broken heart out there to try to recoup - sometimes feeling like Ratso Rizzo dying on the bus. I'm doing the dragging a little too often now, too. Who said loneliness can be fun? No one.

I lie on this swing any chance I get. It’s like a magnet and my butt is the, the thing that’s drawn to the magnet. Well, you know what I mean. It’s fatal attraction. I’ve watched butterflies hatch and I’ve napped uneventfully. I’ve done some heavy-duty daydreaming, castle building, scheming and planning on this swing. (I’ve also flung myself off it onto the hard cement when a frog I was admiring on the wall jumped onto my leg and wouldn’t be brushed off. ) So, I’ve been moved to tears in many ways from this vantage point.

And that aforementioned flying time? It's doing it faster than I can stand. My garden has been growing for years now. Growth and death happen. Plants tower that were tiny. Swing butt-print is dangerously curved. But compost is testifying that it isn't over, even when it seems to be, and I'm still curious about other people's magnet spots, am enamored of the Earth and the Mystery and feel rejuvenated by the smallest things. I come from a long line of cockeyed optimists (Grandma Annie et al) on one side of my family - but on the other, women with the blues. So add mood swings to the variations here. No wonder I'm exhausted - yet perky! The weathered swing on the deck doesn't look like the scene of any kind of action, but oh, the emotional DNA you could collect!

Still, often, I lie on my swing savoring how sweet life can be. I’ve got the world on a string, the sun in the morning and the moon at night, raindrops on roses. I’ve got rhythm. Who could ask for anything more? (I guess that, too, might be me…)