watchthegardengrow

6.29.2008

Voilà, les premiers radis de la saison


6.22.2008

some pics to the last post



Not that Lawrence's highly visual prose needs any. But anyway, here's what he's talking about.

6.21.2008

rhizomes

The garlic is scaping and I trim the elegant tips off of it so that the energy can go back down to the bulbs, still buried deep in the earth. We make a pizza out of them: whole wheat crust, tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil. Another pizza gets kale and sheep's feta. While the dough is rising, John and I go for a walk with Girl. He's plowed paths in the field so that the grass and weeds rise high on either side of us. Only, while walking through the fields the weeds lose their monotonous appearance. In their place are yellow and purple wild flowers I've never seen before. Some look like orchids, others like pineapples. When we get back to the house, I look down at what I thought were more weeds and see thousands of tiny wild strawberries, ripe and red, just behind the dark green leaves. As many as we can pick, there are still many more handfuls to gather in the coming days, to be eaten with labne and honey.

6.20.2008

亂中有序



We left a bale of hay by one of the beds I had planted with chard and overnight the soil that Paul had so meticulously weeded into a rich black loam is flecked with emerald scratches. The chard has started to sprout so that it is only slightly larger than the new grass seedlings. The whole thing looks random and chaotic. I spend over an hour picking out the baby grass from the chard. At times it is difficult to discern what is a weed or grass from what is chard, but as I keep on picking, the chard emerges in neat, orderly rows. The seedlings look first like little splashes of red and green, then like asterisks or webdings, and then like words. And finally the words form into sentences, neat and sturdy.

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...how does your garden grow?

Rosenthal asks me what I grow in the garden and I say "rage," "sorrow," "bitterness." These words hang in the air between us for a moment, long enough to see how silly and pretentious they sound out of my head. I laugh a little at how insufficient language seems to describe where I am at now.
I planted four beds the other day and then went inside to take a nap. It took me a while to hit REM sleep but when I did I had this dream that I was driving and talking to my mother on the phone. At some point I realized my mother was dead and I started crying uncontrollably. I woke up soon after and was surprised that my face was dry. I went back outside and weeded two more beds. I know gardening is supposed to be therapeutic but the weeds just made me angry and I had to take frequent stops to go back inside and get something to drink, or go jump in the pool. I'm already sunburned from working outside without a shirt, so I was wearing my hoodie and sweating. I found the work endless and by the end of the day, utterly unrewarding. Everything I have planted is still too small to eat and requires much tending.
I am angry and impatient with everything lately. And yet when people ask I have no choice but to say, I'm doing fine. I'm OK. There is no cause for alarm. Ignore the sharp knife in my hand or the fire in my breath. My mother is dead and she was the most significant person in my life and I'm just fine. There's not a lot that can be done, except perhaps keeping me busy and away from sharp objects. I feel utterly disconnected from everyone and everything sometimes. I don't want to be, it just feels this way a lot lately: like I'm in some bubble of grief that nothing can penetrate. I am feeling like I need to change my life but I'm not sure in what way I should do this. What edges need polishing, what excesses need to be trimmed. Until I figure it out I'm trying to keep things simple: kill the weeds, get the fucking seeds in the ground, nourish the plants, get my applications in, get my motorcycle license, spend as much time on the bike as possible, go through the motions even if I'm losing it. It helps to think that people are watching. It keeps me from losing it entirely.

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Soundtrack for weeding the fucking garden

NY is Burning by K-Salaam and Beatnick

http://sharebee.com/a3dd7f86

weeds are the devil.


(to download, hit the link and choose the file share service of your choice)

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