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.