The longer you live, the more memories you make, if you’re lucky.
I’ll admit, my memory fails me at times, but it’s usually names that are at the top of my fail list. Thankfully, I remember a whole lot of other stuff, though.
Young folks scoff when we of a certain age begin too many sentences with, “I remember when… the new Frazer’s on the corner was once Parker’s gas station across from Lenny’s pub; our backyard was overgrown and impassable when we moved in; the price of our first house in Newnan was $40,000; babies toddled, and then teenagers drove, and then they moved out, and now they are men - working, aging, married men – with jobs, weddings, wives, and children; Peter Pan collars and circle pins; The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and at Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium when tickets were a couple bucks and no one could hear them anyway for all the girls screaming … and on and on.
Recently, I was remembering the wild backyard from hell we inherited. That backyard is now pretty darned nice, and also a constant chore. I’m not complaining, just being real. Every ache, boo-boo, and band-aid becomes an affirmation of progress and satisfaction in my gardening lexicon.
There I was a few days ago, a sweating mess, working like a rented mule in the way-back woods, bent over double for most of that time (because: metal knee, arthritis, and I never have been good at squatting, which is one of many reasons I failed cheerleader tryouts in school).
I dug out & pulled stubborn weeds, and cleaned dead leaves off the huge rhododendrons. Straining to reach the leaves wedged way down in the hapless cradle of their lowest, woody branches, I mumbled, “How do you get yourselves stuck way down in here?” Contorting myself in wholly unnatural, painful ways, I wheezed and groaned, “But it’s cleanup time. And you gotta go.”
Yes, I talk, out loud out in my yard, to plants, animals, and even dead leaves. And occasional people.
What we gardeners do for love. I had already planted and watered too many flowers in the sunny part of the yard. And now the hard work in the woods was upon me. Rick and I filled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with leaves, sticks and branches, dead and alive, along with unruly weeds and creeping vines snaking over rock borders.
Out they went, all of it mounding sky high in messy, mixed up piles of refuse in service of our annual ritual rehab.
Rick has an affectionate nickname for me: he calls me Pilot. Because of the piles of gardening detritus I leave on the ground as I move along from spot to spot doing my thing. Piles somebody has to then pick up and load into the wheelbarrow. Rick’s nickname is Somebody. (Also Edouard when he makes us coffee in the mornings.)
We lugged 40 bags of pine bark, slashing them open with our Felcos and spilling them out over wooded paths finally clean and fit for a lovely stroll.
I talked to the “maybe snakes” out there in the woods, too, those silent slitherers who might happen to be minding their own business, napping in the rhodo beds. Beds where I would be wading in, planting my feet and reaching elbow deep into overgrowth, ground vines, ivy, and weeds.
“Snakes! I’m coming in here so listen up! Do not come to see me, even if it’s just to say hello, where ya been, neighbor. I am friendly but I have a job to do here and I cannot deal with distractions the likes of which would be, in your sudden presence, more than just a neighborly howdy-do. I am so sorry, but you know I’d scream, scaring us all and who knows who among us would lash out in our own reflexive, reactionary way. I'm just sayin', I have a sharp garden tool, and you have, well, a reputation, So let’s all behave!”
Somehow that little monologue made me feel better about wading in there, but I still took a stick to poke around before advancing. I may be weird, but I’m not stupid. My motto: “garden harder not dumber.”
Three hours passed in no time. Maybe four. I was delirious by then. My back and hammies were my reality clock signaling quitting time. We were glad to obey and went inside to repair ourselves.
“Rick,” I said, “The mosquitoes were swarming back in the woods. I think one flew up my baggy jeans leg and bit me on my calf. It’s already itching.”
To which he responded by mansplaining how mosquitoes don’t fly up peoples’ pants legs, adding, “Must’ve been something else.” He neglected to offer exactly what he had in mind.
Me, Miss Queen of the Last Word mumbled, “Well, it’s a round, red mosquito bite and it already itches.”
Then — our old therapist would be so proud — we let it go, in favor of Triamcinolone cream and a kiss.
Best part of a day like this — besides a hot shower — is always going back outside in late afternoon when the work is done, the sun’s light softens, and everything is clean and cared for; my body is aching (and itching). We stroll down a beautiful path, and we get to enjoy the fruits of our quiet, hard labors, when the garden air is redolent with the scent of living things and blooms and fresh memories.
No satisfaction quite like it.
When a gardener has the privilege of painting a small part of nature’s huge canvas with their own design and the result is harmony, order, balance, color, and light, it’s a job well done, and a day to remember. Chalk another memory up and never let it go.
