Love Lies Bleeding in my Hands

May 1st

May Day.

The Matillija poppies have risen their full 8 foot height and are just beginning to open in their "dancer's pose", as Wendy likes to call it, or "fried egg" pose, as I do. Love-in-a-Mist, a flower from the time when they named them beautifully (think Love-Lies-Bleeding or Fireman's Britches) cluster around what is left of an ancient cactus garden I have yet to rip out. That area, so hot, hot in the summer time you couldn't walk across it, was home to so many borage plants, it's hard to believe I only have one left.

Just thinking about them reminds me how charmed I was when we moved into this house. By the late-20's era, by my new love, by this massive garden that had gone to seed after one of the men withered and passed away from AIDS. I remember sun, heat, and opportunity. At that time I was still hoping to write for television or movies and did not have children.

It's easier to look back, right? To see everything was much easier then? We forget so much. I was in emotional pain then and had trouble with direction in my life. More trouble than now, if you can believe it.

This house has so much history, built by a surgeon, lived in by a landscape architect. We're only the third owners in all those years. With all the terrible things that have gone on around here (and I believe I've only heard more since joining the Neighborhood Watch Program), I still feel so rooted historically to this house.

I was going to write today about what is real and what is not, something that's been on my mind since I worked at Disney and was intrigued by the arguments against the Disneyfication of Fill-in-the-Blank (New York, LA, Paris, the world), but it doesn't feel like that kind of day.

Yesterday was tiring and uplifting in the garden. The lawn hadn't been mowed in two weeks and Mark, my neighbor, just got his new lawn in. And is one of those people who picks up every leaf that falls. Sharp contrast to the people who used to rent the place. I hate to take part in competition, but there's nothing that quickens your game as much as someone who is excellent at what they do.

I finally ripped out two large lavender bushes and an enormous fortnight lilly that had taken over part of my front walk. I'd spend the last four years fighting them, continually cutting them back, only to have them return with a vengeance. Maybe taking over my own garden instead of having someone else do it for me has someone empowered me, because I ripped both out without much pity, then stood back and saw how good it looked. I stopped and tried to think why I was so concerned about ripping them out before. There is a great possibility they were part of my "If it's green, it stays" policy. We'd lost so many plants over the years, I was hesitant to clear something out that was actually doing well. No one likes a hole in a garden and what are the chances whatever you put there will do well? (The answer to that is 60/40.)

I did, however, take the time to divide the fortnight lilly into 10 smaller plants and put them out back, which is something that still amazes me to no end.

The thing that always surprises me in regards to yard work, is where my interests lie. There is nothing so enjoyable as sitting down with a catalog and picking out new plants and nothing so disheartening as seeing those plants or seeds fail to grow, get eaten, or downright perish.

But with all the big work putting in walkways, clearing out brush, dividing perennials, nothing comes close to the act of solitude known as weeding. You can be amazed through all your other big actions in the garden, but I feel you can only enjoy God's presence or "the big picture" in the small act of getting your face ten inches from the soil and picking out a weed.

And yes, I don't think I did enough weeding yesterday.

As luck would have it, there's still time tonight.