Death of the Garden

The week brings the first frost, and with it the (almost) final end of the summer garden. I am not sorry to see it go. I do not grieve the seasons' endings (well, maybe spring because I tire of the endless southern summer); I look forward to seeing what is next. I spend time yesterday pulling out the rest of the annuals. I love cleaning out the garden, creating space. I revel in the abundance of the summer garden, the beds chock full of riotous color. And I am calmed by the scarcity of the winter garden; the fallow spaces under mulch blankets punctuated by the soft yellows and blues of the pansies and snap dragons and the bright red nandina berries. I look forward to cleansing winter snows (I am going for positive thinking here). Enjoying what is here, what is coming; rather than mourning what is over, what is not to be. It seems like a good way to live.

These past two weeks, since I last wrote, as death approaches the garden, I pay particular attention to abundance in the midst of scarcity. There is a new bud on the geranium on the deck; and the roses continue to put forth, even after the frost. Though one of the Elephant Ear caladiums succumbs to the cold, the other in its protected spot hangs in with its companion Purple Shield. The last pepper plant is caught, leaving seven undeveloped peppers. The banana tree survives this attack. And there is beauty in the curled leaf of a receding hosta. A glorious morning walk in the cemetery, where a rare dense fog shrouds the brilliant trees but cannot contain their aching beauty. The stark beauty of the bare tulip magnolia in Nicholas and Kristy's mountain yard.

And the sky has been incredible. On one of my early morning walks, I am rewarded for leaving the house at 6:42 rather than 6:43 with a minute of an eyeful of a skyful of pink fluff. I stand at the end of the driveway and look up through the narrow tunnel of sky between the trees. I wish I were already at the cemetery where the sky is bigger; but somehow I know it won't last long, so I enjoy what I can see. A minute later it is gone, the clouds ordinary again. I am cognizant of the times that I fail to seize serendipitous moments. A year ago, on my way to Asheville, I did not pull the car over for a few minutes to watch the unexpected hot air balloons rising into the sky in Statesville. I still regret it, my lesson learned--and so easily forgotten over and over.

 
The trees are incredible in their gold and ruby dresses. Santi says fall is so fleeting here, she always wonders if she appreciated it enough. If the number of pictures on my camera are any indication, I did. There is always that wondering, though. Could I have loved it better? Could I have spent more time in it? Should I have gone for a drive into the country? I am completely smitten with the little weeping Japanese maple I planted in my side garden. And in the course of seven days it moves from gold to red to barren. I know because my camera captured each transition; if not for the dated photos side-by-side on my computer, I may not have noticed. The still-small burning bush has completed its slow transition from green to brilliant red. Pulling the zinnias around it gives it its moment in the spotlight before the leaves fall.

Two weeks ago I sit on my deck and watch robins drinking from my birdbath; I haven't seen many birds there, so I am pleased with their pleasure in it. An enormous sadness rolls over me when I discover one morning the beautiful stained glass birdfeeder, crafted by and gifted to me by Heather when shecompleted the renovation of the house next door and moved to California, is lying broken and twisted on the deck floor. Knocked from the table one too many times by squirrels, it is beyond usable and finds a new home in the shard garden. It brought me great pleasure to sit in my Adirondack chair in the summer and on my sofa over the winter to watch the towhees, chickadees, cardinals, titmouses, mourning doves, blue jays--and yes, squirrels--at the feeder. I must find another quickly. They all look so mundanely manufactured; I can't bear to replace beauty with ugly.

On my homeward drive down Hillsborough Street, I savor the reflective glow of the setting sun in the glass sides of Raleigh’s tallest buildings. There is so much beauty in the world. Miracles, really. Beauty is a miracle; and it's free to all, requiring no special talent or money, only intention. “People usually consider walking on water a miracle. But I think the real miracle is to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child--our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)

My first published book arrives in the mail Monday. I spot it leaning against my Global Purple Door when I pull into the driveway after work. My heart leaps into my throat! It is the story in pictures and a bit of text of creating my gardens; and of Mary Minges, the original creator. I made it on my fabulous Mac computer, and Apple published it--just for me. I force myself to feed the cat and change into comfy clothes before I sit down and open it; savoring the anticipation. (Unlike the sunrise, it isn't going anywhere.) It is beautiful!

“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” (Franz Kafka) I read this line yesterday, and it comforts me as I have been cognizant lately of the race toward old age. Perhaps it is the true fountain of youth; to see beauty and to know you are seeing it. Maybe that is what cameras are truly for. They capture moments in time and in snapping (I guess cameras don't really snap any more) the beauty, I know that I am noticing it. Looking at it later, like looking at my book, reminds me that I did really see it.

Last summer, while visiting my mother, she pulled out some old negatives her sister had given her. We take them to the camera store to see if they can be developed, and return to pick them up a few days later. One of them is particularly fascinating to me. It is a study in personality. In the grainy black and white photograph, my mother's mother, my great-aunt Fannie (on my grandfather's side), and two other women--all young adults--are spending a summer day near a Tennessee creek. Fannie and the other two women are playing in the water--their long dresses hitched up. They looked like they are having the summer time of their lives, laughing and playful. My grandmother is sitting on the bank in the background, a look of clinical depression on her sallow face. She had an incredible hard life, even to that point, and she is a picture of sadness in the midst of beauty that I suspect she did not notice. Though she lived to the age of 99, she lived as her shadow. My mother, on the other hand, is her color. Why, I wonder? How did my mother learn to live in Kodachrome in a black and white family? Somehow she learned to see beauty. At 95, and with failing eyesight, she still sees it. Somehow she discovered the secret.

"The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” (Henry Miller) Thank you, Mama.