In the morning I tromp down to the community garden before the worst of the heat hits. Not even 8AM, and it’s already like an oven out here. How do people live in this kind of heat? Do you eventually get used to it? I work fast, weeding, watering, digging out what’s left of the lettuce. It’s still perky and green, but when I taste it, it’s bitter. Bolted from the heat.
I am bolting in the heat, damp-haired and light-headed. Sweat dribbling down my face. My husband and I are in DC, longtime guests of our daughter and son-in-law, while the closing on our new house gets pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. But I am not complaining. We are with people we love and the people we love have a garden.
Here is something fun about the garden: sunflowers, some so big that when you cut them and stick them into a jar, it all topples over. Also, bunnies. When I cart the dug-up lettuce over to the community compost bin, the bunnies are waiting for me. They don’t mind the bitter. The other day a friend died.
The news came out of nowhere. Her daughter said she went to sleep and didn’t wake up and I can’t make sense of it. I mean, how do you make sense of it?
Okay, I know it’s a thing that can happen. I just didn’t think it could happen to her, my friend. She was a fellow writer. Once, she finagled some kind of local TV show appearance for Ohio authors and I was one of the people she invited. I stood on the soundstage next to her holding my book and thought I might keel over from nervousness. But when I sneaked a peek at my friend, she was so cool, smiling like she was born to be on TV.
Whenever she was in town, she stayed at my house. We'd walk the dog and talk about our kids, our writing, our gardens. The last time I saw her, a play she’d written was being performed downtown. It was about a woman our age who was empty nesting and worried about her elderly parents, so she and her husband decided to move in next door to them.
The set was an elevator and the scenes changed to either be outside the elevator on the ground floor, the lobby, or upstairs where the penthouse apartments were. Or sometimes inside the elevator itself. The play was called Moving In, Moving Out, Moving On. At the end I was in tears.
Let me know when your next play is showing, I said. I’d love to come! But time went on and I never made it. In the garden I don’t know what to put in place of the lettuce. Sweet peppers? More flowers? The heat keeps rising.
Something else about my friend. When she came for a visit, she always brought homemade treats and wine. I would cut flowers and put them in a jar beside the guestroom bed.
In the morning we would drink coffee together on the porch like we had all the time in the world.
