Spring projects

Unseasonably warm weather has brought out the fierce side of my "gotta getta done" personality. This generally results in me arising earlier in the mornings, dawdling in the garden with clothing that is fit for those that live and work in a circus. I stand outside in something of a stupor staring at what appears to be bare ground. Only I know differently, there is something growing there it just needs a little nurturing.

What I find startling is how ideas and designs will begin to emerge even if if I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. I believe that mornings were designed for those more spiritually aligned and so for me, it takes some time for me to become human. Therefore, I beseech the spirits in the garden to awaken me before I have human contact. This should be a requirement for other people I know, too.

This spring, I'm enamored with the idea of a bridge between two puddles that I like to call "ponds". I can see the wood, painted the palest shade of blue, like the pergola, and I can see the stones that lead to and from it. They are right there between the newly planted redbuds and the soon to be planted shade trees that can keep the intense hot sun off my porch and give me a nice reading nook, too.

As I toured the garden this morning I see that nature has already been busy and I am comforted by the idea that while I sleep and stumble through life, nature plods along doing her thing in spite of me and sometimes despite me. I stumble through the garden and see the hyacinths that have been forced from their slumber by the warmer weather, too, and I wonder if they feel a bit shaken by the force of this spring that seems destined to come early.

I spent considerable time staring at this rather blank spot in my yard sipping my coffee and hoping that the neighbors aren't staring out their windows wondering what I'm staring at. I ponder the idea that I am probably good kitchen-talk for them as they eat their cheerios or danish. I can almost hear the man of the house with that Okie redneck twang, "What the hell is she looking at out there, mama?" To which the lady of the house will snicker and say, "y'know, I don't know! And look at those pants -- does she not KNOW that others will see her in that?" I fear a call from the chief of police anyday now.

It doesn't matter. This is my garden, in my part of the world. It is my paradise, where I come to ponder the weighter things in my life such as how I'll get Nathan food in time for his next departure to calculus club or musical or band practice. As I'm studying the knotty problem of how to form the perfect arc in my pathway, I will often have some snag of an idea emerge, something that has been dodging me for awhile, present itself with a solution that I would never have uncovered had I sat at my desk and stared at my datebook.

To me, the simple reality that the hyacinths follow the order of things comforts me that there is a weightier force at work here and that if I pay attention, I'll find my own path, too.

The downside of such early contemplation is that it doesn't leave me. As I sit across the table from clients or return calls, I'm often doodling in my notebook on the living fence that will bridge two disparate parts of the garden into one continuous line. I find that as I smile and run through me day I remember to breathe a little slower and a little more purposefully thinking about the flat of perennials that will be planted next month in a spot that cries out for color.

I wonder what other people do who do not have gardens and this thought confounds me. Last night, we drove to Muskogee for a soccer game and as we came upon the high school, I thought what I usually think as I approach some state or educational building which is, "why are places of education always designed like prisons?" Wouldn't it be lovely if kids passing through that miserable adolescent stage could have a garden to ponder the weighty parts of their lives, like what will they wear or who will they ask to prom? Couldn't their senses be given a jolt of wonder seeing something besides pavement and metal lockers?

Which brings me to another important part of gardening which is that of sharing the garden with others. Rarely do I emerge from the garden that I don't have a long list of groceries to buy for the perfecte sunday afternoon dinner which I imagine sharing with my family or friends in the pergola, which will soon be dripping with purple strings of wisteria. Sunday afternoons in the garden are as close to perfect as I can imagine.