Tues Ten 041211: How Does Your Garden Grow?

I’m not a gardener. I’ll get that admission out of the way right up front. Still, I enjoy a good outdoor space. They are especially nice this time of year in the South when the heat and humidity haven’t yet made their full onslaught. I mention it because I spent part of the morning yesterday working outside at my patio table. It represented a small triumph for me, something that gave a Monday morning a nice celebration quality. Inspite of my non-gardening tendencies, I’ve been diligently working to reclaim my backyard over the last few weeks. With the help of my Mama (who is, fortunately, quite the gardener), I’ve been making plans involving plants and patio furniture and playhouses, and putting them slowly into action. I began by removing a huge debris pile that had been gathered and allowed to dwarf my view over the last few years. After that came the pruning of many wayward vines and tree seedlings in several areas of the property, and then choosing plants to add and dreaming of various garden ornaments and accoutrements. I still have much planting to do and budgeting for ways to implement my dreams, but the process feels like a celebration even though it’s incomplete. My gifts have enjoyed “helping” and talking about the possibilities. I’ve enjoyed tackling a long-overdue project. And yesterday, I enjoyed a few quiet moments of relishing my accomplishment so far. In celebration of my burgeoning green thumb, I give you the Tuesday Ten: Celebrations from a Morning on the Patio…

1. Bare earth is better than bare branches. (at least when it comes to debris piles)

2. The first step in growing something new is clearing out what’s dying or misplanted.

3. Hearing birds while I’m emailing is a wonderful thing — sponsored by patio tables and wifi.

4. Progress SHOULD be celebrated and taking the time to do it is time well spent.

5. Tea Olive shrubs smell divine this time of year.

6. It’s a blessing to have the freedom to set my own pace — in work, in gardening, in growing — no matter how frenzied a pace it might be at times.

7. Watching my gifts plant and prune and water lets me see they are growing.

8. It feels good to see the results of my own handiwork.

9. Shady places are inviting.

10. Growing is good, even when pruning is required.

April: In Defense of Rain

Rain is just downright misunderstood sometimes. It’s true. It gets a bad rap quite often. Somehow it gets lumped with Mondays as the ultimate of downers. It gets the criticism for too much or too little, and everyone has his own opinion of that sliding scale. It seems it’s never just right with rain. It perpetually takes a backseat to the all-loving sunshine. We have trouble understanding it sometimes. And we have trouble seeing it clearly–especially when it’s pouring.

For much of this week we got an early taste of April showers, or at least the threat of showers, and I’ll admit I was quite grumpy about it. When you’ve been basking in the glow of sunny, warm days, the sudden shift to partly drizzly doesn’t sit well. And, the random downpour is even less inspiring. The weather outside had decided similarities to my inner climate where I’ve been feeling the metaphorical downpour in several areas of my life as well. You know the feeling. When your already full hands get a few more organizational or emotional or even physical balls to carry. When you start to notice the leakage in the culverts holding your heart together in that sane and safe place you call your own peace of mind. It’s been one of those kinds of weeks for me.

Today I finally began to relax and pull my hands off the plugs in all those suddenly noticeable holes in my thinking. Oddly enough, this shift in attitude happened right about the time the sun started to reappear in the skies outside. It was at that moment I realized that I have grass.

Yep. The wayward plot that was filled with brownish dormancy just a few days before–the one I call my front lawn– had suddenly sprouted new and vibrant shades of green. It sprouted a seeming multitude of blades. And, it sprouted another multitude of those purple thingies I wove into necklaces as a child, that unknown vine invading a few shrubs and a very nice crop of dandelions. Yes, I have what may charitably be described as growth.

Now, lest this somehow turn into another rain-bashing exaltation of the power of sunshine, let me say this: Rain makes things grow. This week it rained. And just like that, I have grass now. Granted, I have weeds too, but it looks like the grass may still be winning. Regardless, the lawn is actually green, and I wholeheartedly attribute that fact to a few sporadic downpours and an annoying number of drizzles. Blade or vine, Bermuda or dandelion, green is good in my book.

Here’s the thing. The opportunity to see what’s growing is a good thing, even when it’s weeds doing the growing. A pouring rain–you know, the kind that really soaks the earth–sometimes moves the much-needed process of new growth along. It brings those shoots lying dormant just under the surface right out in the open. And, whether the produce is weeds or choice blooms, at least it shows us what seeds have been planted. It shows us what’s inadvertently taken root and what’s fortunately blossoming. Only then can we know what needs to be pruned or cultivated more carefully.

It’s the same with the things we train our lives to hold, with the plots of soul we till. Whatever really soaks us, good or bad–whether it’s the blessing of a busy work schedule or the tipping point in some level of frustration–that pouring shows us our limits. It shows us our possibilities. It shows us what we want. It shows us what we need. It shows us where we flourish. It shows us where we need to cut back. It shows us where we need to fertilize. It shows us where we’re already prolific.

I love the photo in this month’s desktop wallpaper. It reminds me of that odd shift in perspective that can happen with rain, with our view of the showers that seem to erode the banks of our soul’s delicate balance. It reminds me of that moment when you take just one small step back from the downpour and are suddenly able to see a glimpse of what was only a confusing pattern of droplets before.

I think I see green.

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Diligence

Spring in Mississippi is so fun. In a week’s span (or less) we might experience the gamut of 90 degrees to 40 degrees and all the breezy, sunny, partly cloudy weather-joy in between. While it sometimes wreaks havoc on my sinus cavities, I can still say that Spring in Mississippi is so fun. May is usually very flirtatious with Summer. It flirts with the Magnolia tree in my front yard, too. The evergreen leaves are with us year-round, but the white velvet flowers tend to signal for me the wishy-washy transition of Spring to Summer around these parts. As Spring pulls up a chair and the days get warmer and longer, the magnolia pods begin to open. I’ve been anticipating the event for a few weeks from the front porch swing.

In typical early May fashion, just last week I noticed the first blooms opening near the top of the tree where the sunshine hits most readily. Slowly the ones closer to the ground feel the pull of the heightening sun and begin to unwrap as well. I’ve been watching one particular bloom carefully for the last few days. It’s on the lowest branch on the north side of the tree–one of the few growing right in gazing distance of curious eyes and inquisitive noses. This bloom started small and tightly held as they all do. Slowly it’s been pulling away from the branch, reaching higher. And, it’s been getting whiter with each motion. Yesterday morning I noticed it at it’s plumpest posture so far, and I wondered if the intricate yellow stamens might make an appearance today.

By the time we made it home from Little Drummer Boy’s preschool “graduation” (hark!) last night, the daylight was almost gone. But, I still had my eye on that bloom. It had slowly opened throughout the day to a tulip-shaped cup. We were almost there. I didn’t get to photograph it before the darkness arrived, but I was eager to see it this morning. In an amazing twelve hours, that velvety cup of Southern goodness had completely opened, and through some crazy midnight wind gust or cardinal in flight, it had already begun to drop some of it’s pink-tipped stamens into the waiting petals. Life happens quickly with the magnolia.

The scent of a magnolia flower is fresh. It has a pungeantly clean smell to me — a sweet and lemony fragrance that seems untouched by a botanist’s manipulation. When the blooms open, you don’t have to stand very close to sense the strength of that scent–to feel the place from which it comes. The magnolia is a plant of my “place.” An environment so familiar to me that the blooms sometimes go unnoticed despite their glaring whiteness against dark green leaves and their powerful fragrance. But, I’ve been waiting for this one for some reason. I wanted to see inside of it, to see again what it was made of.

The slow and diligent process of blooming is inspiring. It is patient, but intent. It is subject to wind and weather, but resilient. With encouragement from the sunlight, the bloom slowly and methodically unwraps itself from a tightly wound cocoon. As I’ve written before, it reveals it’s core in that process.

That blooms are bent on opening is a confusing endeavor at times, given the fact that the flowers so easily fade away. But the magnolia’s diligence is perhaps most perplexing. This delicate flower fades to brown and petals fall away rather quickly by blooming standards. They don’t tarry in the elements for long. They bruise easily with the slightest touch of a person or some other ambassador of nature. Soon the stamens released into the petals’ cradle will be scattered by breezes or birds or beetles or boys. It won’t maintain its pristine white for long if plucked from the tree–only a matter of hours really. Yet, I’ve read that Magnolia fossils have been found that date the tree to the time of the dinosaurs. For all its vulnerability to bruising and brevity, this tree–this flower–has staying power.

There is a precious quality to the magnolia. Something valued and worthy of anticipation, even in this native land where it is so prolific. Perhaps it is its delicacy, its subtlety, its brief brush with the world that makes it seem so valuable. And, its unqualified diligence to expose that worth, even if only for a few moments is even more coveted. As I think about my own growth, my own life changes and my own exposure to the face of the sun, I’m recognizing some lessons from the magnolia. To remain hidden and covered is easier. To allow life’s wind and weather to deter or confine the process of flourishing. A slow–perhaps even defiant–method of diligence despite any bruising the stuff of life may offer is sometimes required to reveal that hidden amazement, that hidden desire to connect with those around me, those hidden gifts waiting to be given. The revelation is precious, no matter how briefly it is uncovered. But, as precious and revered as the open petals are, I’m learning that the greater rarity is the diligence. The persistence. The insistence. A thing all the more precious to seek. All the more precious to possess.

“The precious possession of a man is diligence.” (proverbs 12:27)

Fruit

“In judging others a man labors in vain, often errs, and easily sins, but in judging and examining himself, he always labors fruitfully.”
~ Thomas a Kempis

Word-Lush Wednesday

The latest column in the American Life in Poetry project reminded me that ripening happens not just in sunny days, but in rain and starry blackness as well. And, as the color deepens and becomes more varied on the surface of a time- and weather-worn life, we have hope that the lush and vibrant flesh beneath is becoming sweeter still–just waiting to crack open and spill out it’s fragrant juice. Here’s to American poets. Here’s to the poetry all around us. Here’s to a weighty life…

American Life in Poetry: Column 227
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Jane Hirshfield, a Californian and one of my favorite poets, writes beautiful image-centered poems of clarity and concision, which sometimes conclude with a sudden and surprising deepening. Here’s just one example.

Green-Striped Melons

They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.

Some people
are like this as well–
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.

An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Jane Hirshfield, whose most recent book of poems is “After,” Harper Collins, 2006. Poem reprinted from “Alaska Quarterly,” Vol. 25, nos. 3 & 4, Fall & Winter, 2008, by permission of Jane Hirshfield and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation.  The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.  We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.