Saturday, June 27, 2009

Good Enough

Summertime beckons gardening. Over the years I've dedicated my energy to growing perennials, but this year two friends inspired me to try my hand at vegetables. One has several acres of vegetables and the other, a master gardener, has innumerable varieties of heirloom tomatoes, exotic vegetables, and herbs.

The first part of summer my mind was busy thinking about vegetables, while my body was actively planting and pruning flowers. Soon it was mid-June and I'd done nothing. A serendipitous castoff jump-started the project: driving through my neighborhood I noticed a handmade sign offering free yellow pear tomato plants. A few small pots perched hopefully by the side of the road; I snatched one up, never having seen or tasted yellow pear tomatoes before.

The universe had assisted by transforming thought into action! At the farmer's market that week a vendor had flats of colorful, mixed lettuces for a dollar apiece. Purchasing two packages I plopped them next to the tomatoes, still unplanted. A couple of days later, I noticed fresh basil for sale at a garden supply store - four plants made it home to the growing pile of waiting pots. My father sent a herb basket for a special occasion - soon tarragon and parsley were added to the fray.

A week went by and my easy luck was arrested. I fretted - what next? What to buy, where to plant? I had no plan and summer was marching on. Frustrated, I resorted to digging up two beautiful mounding evergreens from a narrow spot at the rear of the house. Shaking each tiny plant and herb free, I mindlessly dug holes in the ground and planted them. There - all in. Stepping back to view my work, I smiled. My vegetable garden amounted to a total of about two square feet!

I felt defeated. What sort of a garden was this? What could I cook with this mish-mash of items anyway? My mind shifted, remembering the yellow pear tomatoes: a gift, a gentle push to just start somewhere. Mine was clearly a work in progress: a messy, random, evolving vegetable garden. I sensed heaviness lifting from my shoulders, a new freedom to appreciate my tiny garden. Small and imperfect, it was good enough.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

A Kiss

Come
and
share
a kiss
with
me
and
taste
the joy,
the sorrow,
that
will
be.
- Elisabeth

The Garden Tour

The bus was alive and rumbling loudly when I arrived at 6:30 a.m. - a monolithic thing, worthy of shame. Smiling, dried-apple lady faces were handing out paper bags packed with fresh bagels, cream cheese, bananas, homemade oatmeal cookies, and bottled water for breakfast. In a blur of sleepiness I took my bag and boarded the bus, shyly greeting watchful eyes as I veered toward the back. I was the newcomer, youngest of the group by at least 15 years and not a member of the Garden Club.

I felt lucky to land a seat by myself, in the rear! Organizing my travel bag, looking for the poetry book a friend sent me, stowing away my garden hat, and shifting into a comfortable position, I couldn't help but notice the eyes on me. Interested eyes, friendly eyes, welcoming eyes. I nestled down, burying myself into obscure and ethereal poems, head leaning against the plate glass window.

About an hour into my trip I glanced up; the others were napping, chatting, looking out the window at the rapids of the Susquehanna River. Sleepily, I allowed my eyes to close and take in the sounds. The start and stop of the engine heaving forward, the hum of polite chatter, rustling paper bags, the click-click of the bathroom door lock. It was all so innocuous, so pleasant. I allowed myself to fall asleep.

Heightened voices and the bus grinding into a parking spot woke me. We'd traveled over two hours for the garden tour: thirteen beautiful homes, all spruced up for seeing, shiny new planters burgeoning with rare grasses and flowers in compositions only seen in expensive architectural magazines.

What impressed me most vividly was not the lavish outdoor living spaces, extravagant ponds, magnificent fountains spilling into streams and pools, walled gardens, pine straw-laden wooded paths, original sculptures, and every flower known to mankind - but the people. The extraordinary wealth, privilege, position, and what that meant in the lives of the homes and gardens we had paid to tour. Photos of well-bred racehorses standing next to famous men and women, one-of-a-kind paintings and prized oriental rugs, the uppermost elite of our society poised with blonde-haired sons and daughters at wedding parties, hushed servants stockpiling dining tables with silver-trayed tea cookies and freshly squeezed lemonade.

By contrast, I noticed my group of elderly tourists reverently taking in the smallest of details, making notes into tiny, well-worn notebooks, dutifully donning the pale blue booties over dirty street shoes, sharing grateful exchanges and transparent smiles with our hostesses - with simple compliance, a gentle acceptance of what was. Throughout the day of well-paid for glimpses into the private lives of the privileged few, they solemnly pushed themselves to stumble up and down hills and cobbled walkways hour after hour, bodies moving slowly, with determination, feet sore, mouths parched from our supply of bottled water running out - all without the slightest murmur or complaint. At the end of the tour, finally comfortable atop our cheaply upholstered bus seats, they gaily exchanged notes and remembrances. Beads of sweat streamed down their calm faces, the large windows sealed shut in mid-June, for the air conditioner was broken and we were consigned to suffer the long trip home in unbearable heat.

I learned something this day. It wasn't the privileged few I admired most, but the aged, seasoned group I had traveled with. These people were the best small-town America had to offer. They were everything our modern society has forgotten: kind, patient, genteel, yielding, gracious, wise, and nearing the end of long, well-lived lives. What had begun as a carefully orchestrated, solo garden tour ended with unexpected insights into the very group I'd carefully avoided at the start. I charged myself guilty of sidelining, marginalizing, and pretending the elderly didn't really matter. Yet, at the end of the day, truth is I was humbled and proud to be amongst them.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Freedom

Leading a family life, with a dog and two cats to boot, can be overwhelming. The demands on my time are endless: cooking, shopping, clean-up, laundry, bills, homework help, driving to marching band, baseball, voice lessons, football, playdates, Scouts, yard work - it's not an original list, by any means. But, on any given day I can get lost in responsibility.

Last Saturday I had an idea. I thought, "What if I just let everything go and take off?" It's not as if the children will die from starvation or the house will burn down! Feeling giddy that's exactly what I did, entreating my husband to join me.

We rooted a couple of helmets out of storage and hopped on his motorcycle. In our part of the world, it doesn't take long to get out in the countryside. Before long we were riding on back roads, surrounded by cornfields, alfalfa fields, apple orchards, dairy farms - we even discovered a buffalo farm. Sweet-smelling air, the wind at our backs, me holding onto his middle like a teenager in love; it was just the two of us - not talking, resolving problems, or seeking a destination. A spree it was, and we found ourselves completely surrendered to the moment.

About an hour later, thighs chaffed and stiff, we headed for home. And when we got there, everything was just as before: messes waiting to be cleaned up, bills to be paid strewn on the kitchen table, hungry children waiting for supper, the telephone ringing.

But, something had changed. Everything looked the same, but felt different. We'd given ourselves a gift: some breathing room, a refueling of weary spirits, a delicious slice of freedom. Transformed from our time away we felt younger, refreshed, sporting a spring in our step. I need to remember to do that more often.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Creativity

We write to heighten our own awareness of life...We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection...We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it, to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth...to expand our world, when we feel strangled, constricted, lonely. When I don't write I feel my world shrinking. I feel I lose my fire, my color.

- Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

- C. Day Lewis, The Poetic Image

Monday, June 1, 2009

Heroes, Large and Small

Maybe it's been nearly half a century since it happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday. It's like a touchstone, since earlier memories have faded from consciousness. Eight years old and diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma which, translated, means cancer of the soft tissue. I never heard my parents speak the word "cancer" out loud - never. They simply said, "You have a growth that needs to be removed." What I didn't know was what that meant, what lay ahead.

The oncology specialists at All Children's Hospital were grave and pointed: "She'll won't survive three months; the disease is rare; there are only two documented cases in medical history and both died; there's no cure." I can only imagine the devastation my parents felt hearing this news. Even so, not one of the children in our family of seven would've guessed it.

Much later, I learned that privately they argued over practicing faith healing vs. traditional medicine. But outwardly, they projected brave faces and hopeful hearts. They agreed to pursue both avenues of healing, in tandem. Doctors were permitted to do what they must - multiple surgeries, experimental chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant - while they fearlessly petitioned every church, denomination, and minister in our small community, asking my name be held up in prayer.

My mother begged the chief surgeon, C. Everett Koop (who, much later, became Surgeon General of the U.S.) say a prayer before operating. He agreed. I was a guinea pig, a literal experiment, a race against odds as a team of doctors attempted to remove the tumor, along with my lymph system up to the aorta. Next came trial levels of chemotherapy.

Photos reveal me shrinking to the size of a bony, frail bird and losing my strawberry blonde hair. I remember the arduous five hour drive to the hospital on a bumpy turnpike, feeling the rise of anxiety and nausea over the impending uncertainty of what was ahead, balling up my little fists to fight off the sickening ether mask, the sour smell of my hospital room, and the sheer white curtains, always pulled shut. Visitors never came, except the hospital priest - we were so far from home.

Yet, out of the horror an angel miraculously emerged. A young nurse, wearing a beautiful, intricately pleated and starched white cap, took special interest in me. As twilight set in, she would take me in her arms and rock and sing to me, occupying the sole rocking chair in the pediatric ward. I remembered her name for years and years. Now it's faded from my memory.

At the end of three months, I was still alive. Three years later, I was beginning to thrive. At the five year mark, the doctors pronounced me cured.

I think about the people who are the obvious heroes in my story: the doctors, who made such careful, calculated decisions and fearlessly executed them; my parents, who symbiotically imparted the ambient message that I was okay. But, it was the nurse who carved time out of her hectic schedule to hold, rock, and sing to me - in a place where every baby and child rightfully held equal claim on her attentions - she's the quiet hero I remember most.