All is not lostThe cursory inspection of the garden and thirty-minute weed-pulling session yields a single impending bloom on the tea roses in the corner of the yard by the gate but a much better spread of buds on the new roses that I planted all along the wall, looking to maybe erupt the first of next week if it warms up a little. The lilacs seem finished for now, the other shrubs are greening in and the grapevines have silver-dollar leaves at last. They definitely don't like the cold mornings, unlike the weeds. In the front gardens absolutely everything is blooming and the ivy is growing like mad. Figures. Last year it was the other way around. Do gardens take turns? They must.
All is not lost
Become who you are
It happens once in a lifetime
In this needle and haystack life
I found miracles there in your eyes
It's no accident we're here tonight
We are once in a lifetime alive
There is one rogue tomato plant coming up from where I grew fantastic heirloom tomatoes last year only to see the squirrels abscond with them when they were finished stealing all of the grapes. Bah. I'm going to let it grow. If it looks hearty enough I will go get netting, maybe a padlock and a shotgun and I'll sit in the shady part of the yard guarding it from the freeloading, fur-covered neighbors in the woods.
Or maybe I'll blow out all the windows on the back of the house to get someone's attention.
Things are changing. Again. I don't like change, but I gather you know that. In the twelve months we have been here I bought a few plants and I painted the teeny-tiny guest bathroom and yes, that's it. August moved out and I made him come back. Because I hate change. Nothing ever looks familiar, nothing feels familiar, I don't know anything anymore and it's so much more difficult than I thought it would be. Gone is the resiliency of the daughter of the midway, replete with the blanket I knew so well overnight and the ocean in the morning. Gone is any sort of habit, routine or cognizant sight short of the faces but those all grow older so they change almost daily.
It's hard. It's hard to be settled but not know the street names. I can't tell you how to get to my house from four blocks away. I don't know where to get a watch battery save for that place in the valley that seemed so capable but isn't convenient, even though I will tell you I found a place, so proud of myself, I am. I don't know why there aren't more beach days and less of everything else and I don't do well with news. Because in the end everything always turns out okay but still my brain wants to go to all the awful what-ifs or oh-noes before I can even wrap it around the positive side of something.
And I'm aware that I do this and frustrated by it to no end. The other day I looked into the sea and she refused to keep my secrets, pushing me away, a stranger with no claim to know her so well as to assume she would take my thoughts and keep them safe.
Her sister Atlantic would never do such a thing. I scolded her and she laughed.
She laughed.