6 years. I should have started before. There is so much on which to catch up. More pressure, like where to start when the start is long past? This was the tale of a garden gone to hell and its recovery. Along the way, it became more, like so many great efforts that seem to become glyphs referring to the other things one isn't quite up to addressing yet -- like the stepfamily you made that you were so sure you were going to succeed brilliantly at blending harmoniously, which turned out to be way beyond your human abilities and capacity for niceness -- a way to redirect the energy that gets all bottled up and frustrated behind the things you cannot change, channeling it into the things that no one else even wants to touch, carving out your sphere of control alongside the things it is better to leave to your husband (who you are so sure is flawed and inept), as much as this is torture (and probably not a really good idea), for all the things that are really just bigger than you can manage and require you to hang on when you don't remember why you are anymore.
Except that in the garden, no matter how much you bungle it up, it does get better rather than worse, the buds and early blooms reappear on the sticks of the shrubs and trees in the muddiness of March, and the stems push up out of the ground to offer their flowers to the warmth of the sun behind those low-hanging clouds spitting more rain, opening occasionally to light the garden and fields beyond and reveal their glory. You suspect you can manage another winter after this reward for the last one survived. The least you can do is thank the plants.
When I started, I knew nothing. Now, I know enough to really understand that this was true and start to figure out what to do about what I have done. I suppose that is progress of a sort. The realization of the absurd will continue, at least for another year.
Come take a seat, have a glass of whatever it is you are drinking and keep me company with the cats and the dogs, the frogs and the fish, the toads and the butterflies while I labor on and try to learn how to make something of which I can be finally proud.
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6 commentaires:
Hi, Jackie! So glad you are doing this-love the line about "the husband"! I can hear myself saying something like that...But when I got to the garden portion, I physically felt something lift within me! I once had a lovely yard that needed to be reconstructed into a garden and I loved the 2 years I was able to work on it. And you are right, even with the day-to-day stresses, disappointments and defeats, once you step into the garden you see things that melt all those troubled feelings away. It is quite magical, and every Spring is always a delight. Thank you for making me feel that feeling again, even though I have left that yard and now am without one. I still dream of the garden I WILL have one day...Tracy, Chicago IL
Chapeau, Jackie!
Ton ecriture, si belle! Ce sera une bonne chose pour toi, aussi bien pour tes lecteurs.
Carole
Londres
Jacks,
things to remember; green side is usually up and thick full weeds look like lawn from a distance! :)
miss you! and I look forward to reading your blog. its about TIME!
Katie
OMG, a blog! How v. v. 2003 of you!
F'r serious, yo, this took you FOR-EV-ER. You should post your old e-mail and backdate 'em.
You do know how to backdate posts, right?
And how to code in basic html, right?
Right?
*sigh*
It's a very good thing you've a teenaged son.
We're having corned beef and cabbage and stout tonight because I made Mom make corned beef and cabbage (and stout) because I will for ever and always be
-your bratty little sister
Dear Jackie,
Thanks for sharing your blog with me. I love that quote of Camus. I was also able to read all the French! I have studied French, two years in HS and one semester in college, and although I can't speak it worth a darn, I can read a little and I have a French dictionary, so keep some French coming, it's a wonderful language. Can you speak it fluently by now? I imagine you can. I am so envious.
Back to the quote of Camus. I remembered that he said one must think of Sysyphus as happy, but I didn't remember the first part, or the exact reference. I brought this up once in a conversation with my son David, and he was captivated by the idea of Sysyphus
as happy. He had never heard the quote.
Erwin and I are retired now and live in Reno, NV. Our life is very easy, but I think
life is hard, even when it's easy. In fact when one doesn't have to work or struggle,
one again faces the problem of purpose. So today when I read your blog, the quote spoke
to me. "The struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart." So we get up each morning
and try to create some happy moments. (A friend of mine has said there isn't such a
thing as happiness, but there are happy moments.)
Are you pursuing your career over there? From your comments about the garden being a
"glyph" for other things, I sense that there are difficulties in your life. Still, it
must be a great adventure, living in France as part of a French family. Thanks in advance
for sharing.
Last summer Erwin and I visited Aix-en-Provence and hired a very nice woman
(tour.designer@provence-travel.com)to take us around to places mentioned in letters home
from my uncle who was there as a Fulbright lecturer in 1959-60. He taught one semester
at Aix and the second at Grenoble, and also lectured at the Sorbonne and in Nice.
He was lucky enough to actually meet Camus, just by accident while eating in the little
Auberge in the village of Lourmarin with the woman who was the curator of the Chateau
Lourmarin. It seems that Camus came in and sat at a nearby table, and since he was a
good friend of the woman my uncle was with, he came over to their table. Here is an
except of the letter describing this encounter:
"On driving into the little village at the foot of the Chateau Mme. Godwin told me that
this was the home of Albert Camus. I nearly fell out of the car, for this man is one of
the two or three great novelists of the world (Nobel Prize, etc.). Well, while we were eating dinner in the little Auberge in the village (and I wish I could describe this, with its great open kitchen and primitive methods resulting in heavenly food which I
can't even name, except for civet de lapin, or jugged hare in British, with a spiced wine
sauce) well, while we were eating in came M. Camus and sat at the next table. Since he is a close friend of Mme. Lisle, he came to our table when he finished and chatted a little while. He looks a little like Rex Harrison though more attractive, very handsome
in fact, and utterly simple and friendly in manner. He came to Lourmarin to get away from the Paris crowds and according to Mme. Lisle the natives in the village hardly know he has written anything, much less that he is world famous. They simply know him as a nice man. Well, after dinner the three of us (Mme. Lisle wanted to come back with us but
had some work to do) drove on to Bonnieux, a mountain village of about the 12th century which is almost beyond the imagination, mine anyway. When we stopped at the chateau Mme. Lisle served us champagne, made on the grounds of the chateau and well known in the area, as we sat before the fire in this enormous 16th century fireplace. The wood was roots of
olive trees killed in the severe frost three years ago. The French don't waste anything.
Do you wonder that I kept pinching myself to see if this wasn't all a dream? Forgive my
exclamatory style, but it was really something for the record."
This letter was dated November 22, 1959, and only a few months later Camus was killed in a car accident.
You can imagine that after reading these letters of my uncle, (I typed them up and made
them into a little book and made copies for family members) I wanted to visit some of
the places mentioned. So I finally made last it last September! It was great.
Catharine (the tour designer) took us to Lourmarin, the Chateau, the village, we saw the street where Camus lived and visited his grave in a nearby cemetery. We had lunch in a lovely place in Bonnieux, and she even took us (on a second day) to Cassis from where we took a little boat ride to see the Calanques. Very impressive, and lovely little seaside town, I recommend it.
We also got to Nice. (We spent a week there first, and took some bus rides along the French Riviera). Then we spent a week in Aix, from where we toured Provence with Catharine on two separate days. We haven't made it to Grenoble yet, but one day I hope to go there and retrace some of the day trips my uncle took from there.
Looking forward to more installments of your blog.
Love, Peggy
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