March / October

It is mid October. Stopping at Coastal for bunny hay, I fill my arms with bulbs. Mostly daffs, a few indulgent tulips.

I return to this past March garden to see where I wish to place more color for the future March to come.

 

Remember early March? These top photos are from the 1st. We had no fucking idea. That smash of daffodils across the back, though.

The far small bed beyond the tree stumps is pretty shadowy in summer now, under the pear tree in Giorgio's yard. I put some rhubarb in there this summer. Last year in April there was an explosion of forget me nots, with a few small head, orange nosed narcissus poking up. I wonder if all that got enough sun to show again.

All three of the metal edged beds can take a lot of new bulbs, I'm seeing. But I always hesitate to push this transition. I love watching things fade and whither.

It was a smoothie heavy time, the early pandemic.

Somehow, we had no idea, and also really already knew. 

I remember the appalled inner rush of those days. My guts pacing. I said to Jeff more than once, voice strained with strange grief-laughter: I Feel Really Weird Right Now

Against the panicked urgings of the internet, we kept a small core of our chosen family together. We brought in the Equinox. 

We did what we could to ground.

Jeff vacuumed a lot and pushed back against the blackberries.

We began to rest again; we began the slow process of waking up.

That spot of pink in the back is a random hyacinth from before my time that I swear I am going to move every year. She has a cousin in the yard - where? I want to put them near each other. 

Indoor harvests help. I remember also digging green garlic from the mud, cutting side shoots from weathered broccoli, double washing dirty wild arugula, parsley, thyme. And several strong rounds of radishes, there in late March.

Oh! And self seeded corn salad! A lot of that to look forward to, maybe. 

By late March the dark tulips were already up, despite the snow. Can you believe it?

I grieved the garden that was here for years. That process helped me know how to grieve my job when I lost it in late March. How to grieve the connections we grow against all odds in the context of the construct we call school. How to grieve my independence and the direction I was building in my work. I had a full summer planned. A lot of learning, a lot of outside time. There was a big push of energy behind it, a lot of things converging. As I felt the imaginary floor fall out, I landed on the ground. 

I watched the peas push their coiled heads from the earth and cried from gratitude.