In Search of My Mother's Garden*

Changing gardens is hard. It's not the new flora and fauna﹣not even the fauna that eat the flora (later that might annoy me). In fact, it's not what is new at all; it's letting go of what is missing to make room for the new. The coffee shop doesn't open early enough and they don't make decaf drip coffee and I don't like the cups and it's not warm enough to sit outside and may never be in the morning. And I miss Brian and Kevin at Cafe Carolina, who knew my name. They knew my order, too; I don't even know my order at Santa Lucia. But it is a sweet place. I will give it until my gift card is used up and then assess.

My mother's garden is a bit wild and a lot beautiful. She is not satisfied with it; I don't know why, but I do know her dissatisfaction with so many things is something I am going to struggle with. It is part of her personal garden. I fell in love with the unfamiliar-to-me St. John's Wort and crocrosmia lucifer last summer when I was here. (Perhaps before summer's end I will learn to photograph the crocrosmia. I have discovered that true red flowers are difficult to get a good picture of.) And I am glad that my mother seems to have finally made peace with the tiny but invasive forget-me-nots, and given them a bit more space. It is one of those "weeds" that would take over the garden and the lawn if allowed, but kept in bounds are beautiful.

My childhood home is on the side of a hill in the woods. The ferns and fir trees frame the gardens. The deer live in the framework and like to come into the picture at will. In this first week, I have seen not a single squirrel; and, other than hummingbirds, only one bird. My mother doesn't feed the birds﹣they make a mess and, like the mourning doves in my North Carolina garden, the jays are greedy, so she opts out. I am getting seed soon. I am overjoyed to be able to sleep in the summer with the window open; and I miss being awakened by bird song.

I spend the week since my arrival building my nest. Part of my personal garden is the need for change. Changing jobs, changing homes, rearranging furniture, putting new plants in the garden. So I enjoy arranging my familiar possessions into my new space. As I install my yard art into my new garden, the one my sister created when she lived here a few years ago, I am disappointed that there isn't more to do in the garden. I was told it needed TLC, but my mother's garden helper "did pull the weeds." I like to pull weeds﹣at least the first ones of the season. The cleaning out cleans me out. Emptying and making space. It is creating that space that gets my creative juices and my imagination flowing.

Under the carport with the plastic bags and wooden crates and Maxwell House coffee cans filled with driftwood, beach stones, and shells collected by me and my sisters and parents decades ago, I discover the old iron kettle I used to make sandbox stew in. I put it in the garden. (I have replaced Mary's watering can with it in the sidebar of this blog.) I look forward to reconnecting with my childhood while I am here. Besides the beach stones and sandbox pot, I see in the sweet peas and daisies the wildflower bouquets I used to present to my mother. The ones she put on the dining table like they were the finest hothouse floral arrangements. What better place and time to return to writing memoir, which this blog interrupted.

Now that my nest is nearly finished, I feel anxiety creeping in. The next step is new relationships. I am not so good at that. Soon I will stop feeling like this is a vacation from which I will return to my life. I am already keenly missing my friends, who are now very far away. Friends are the true flowers in the garden. I know some of my sister's friends, and have met some more this week. That helps, but eventually I will need to grow my own. I loved Mary's flowers that came up in my North Carolina garden; but the garden wasn't mine until I added my own to the mix. I brought seeds from my poppies with me. I don't know if they will grow here, but I will scatter them in my new garden and see what comes up. And I have to figure out my mother's personal garden, too, and how I can be a companion to her and not lose my self. Change is good. Adjustment to change is hard﹣that time in the hallway between the familiar and the new, before the new becomes the familiar.

My Fresh Market scone clone﹣the one I made yesterday in my mother's kitchen using the beloved and familiar green crockery mixing bowl I helped mix chocolate chip cookie dough in as a child﹣is probably better than the FM one that has accompanied my blog writing and before that my journaling time for more than a decade. But it isn't quite right for me. It is a recipe I experimented with a few years ago when FM decided theirs weren't quite right and changed them, with poor results (something they were experimenting with again just before I left NC). But I haven't made it for a while. The recipe is right, but the patting out and baking need an adjustment.

This recipe for my life is right. I am home. Home in the green. Home in the mountains. Home where the air is fresh, not sticky. Home with family. The patting out and baking will take some more time. As I search for my place in my mother's garden, I will enjoy her flowers and her gardens for now. Maybe I will find my own flowers to add to hers﹣at least in my little plot within hers. Or maybe that will wait until I have my own garden again someday. I will have to decide, too, if I put my inner garden on hold and just live in hers; or if I stay steady in creating my own plot inside her circle. Creating a garden takes time.

*I know, the title has been used before. But I'm just borrowing it for a minute. Apologies to Alice Walker.