Surprised by Vegetables

I forgot what I planted in the vegetable garden. I mean, I have a vague idea but not the particulars. Usually, I keep a little booklet, detailed grids of all of the flower beds and garden plots in my yard. I used to go all in with it, drawing out pictures and coloring everything in. Now, it's just a scribble. Notes for next year. What worked and what didn't.

For example: Don't plant this doofy variety of tomatoes again because they vine all over the place and hardly produce anything worthwhile. Or, this kale is great, but give it more space. Or, move the peonies before they get overtaken by the raspberry bush.  

Anyway, this year, I never mapped out the vegetables. What happened was it was going to rain, and I was trying to get all the seedlings into the ground before it started. I did get everything done, but ran out of time for my note-taking. I'll remember! I'll write it down later! But then a rabbit ate half of the plants (which plants? the cucumbers? the peppers?)

So, I planted other plants in those spaces (intending to write that down soon, but first, I had to put the fence up to keep out the rabbit). And later, interestingly enough, some of the rabbit-chewed plants came back to life (the beans? a pepper, but what kind of pepper?)

Totally unrelated, I've hit upon a new way (for me) to write a book. For the record, other ways that I've written a book: 

1. Write a big messy draft with no plan at all and rewrite the whole thing multiple times. 

2. Write a detailed synopsis and veer away from it spectacularly.

3. Write a draft in a 30-day rush and spend three years reworking it.

4. Handwrite like a madwoman in a notebook and transcribe on my laptop. 

5. Dictate, via the voice feature on my phone, and email myself the blathery output to revise.

This "new" way is a combo of some of the others, but with a twist. The original plan was to dictate the next scene while I walked the dog each morning and fine tune it in the afternoons. Instead, what I found was that I got further ahead in the whooshing out of dictation and further behind in the fine-tuning, so now I'm a mix of treading water and swimming forward through uncharted waters, both so far ahead and so far behind, and somehow straddling the present and the past at the same time. 

It's a maddening mess. But it's fun! 

Meanwhile, outside in the garden, every day it's a new surprise, the mystery plants spilling over the fence and twining around each other. A cucumber plant that might be a melon? Not a pepper plant but a tomatillo plant? I stake and untwine the best I can, vow to write it all down as soon as I figure out what I've grown. 

Or not. 

Keeping Busy on the Longest Day of the Year

I wanted to light the cherries on fire, but it turns out I'd bought the wrong kind of accelerant. The recipe called for cherry brandy, but I'd substituted cherry whiskey, and apparently cherry whiskey does not ignite. So, that was a big bummer. The dessert (cherry cheesecake bars) still ended up being delicious. Also, the lemon cookies. 

I am not what anyone would call a baker. Somehow, despite my best efforts, I always make a mess. Flour on the floor, dribbled egg on the counter, batter spatter on the walls. And everything seems to take ten times longer than I plan. Pitting cherries, for example. Ridiculous. Even with a cherry pitter. 

Still, I pitted my way through. The prep work for a celebration takes time. I wanted to take time. This is a new practice for me. Living in the present moment, rather than ruminating over the past or worrying about the future. In the present it was the Summer Solstice, and my husband and I had invited several friends over to mark the day. It's a thing I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember, but then inevitably, I forget. 

This goes back to my English teacher days, reading The Great Gatsby so many times I can practically recite it, random lines jumping out at me and sticking in my head, like this one, said by the bored, breathy Daisy Buchanan: 

"Do you always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."  

Anyway, this year I decided once and for all that I would not miss it. In addition to the lemon cookies and non-flammable cherry cheesecake bars, I whipped up a batch of fruity drinks. Everyone brought some variation of a fruity dessert, and we all sat outside on the patio. This week we were having a Heat Dome and the temperature was 95 degrees, but whatever. We pitted through it. I had read somewhere that a good conversation starter is to ask people what's keeping them busy lately. 

The question had all of us talking well after the sun set about volunteer projects and books and gardening and kitchen renovations and getting-a-kid-off-to-college, while also managing to pull in stories about a trip to Prague, a whale breaching off the coast of New Jersey, a theory about why women have big hips, and how lawns are dumb and why not just turn the whole thing into a perennial garden. 

Before we knew it, the longest day of the year celebration was over and we were divvying up the leftover fruity desserts and saying our goodbyes. Only a few days later, and I am already wanting to jump ahead to next year’s Summer Solstice. I know I know I need to live in the now, but forgive me if I make one small note: 

Next time go all in with the brandy and set the cherries on fire. 

(cherries, not igniting) 

Celebration, after the sunset

Brunch

On the patio watering flowers, I saw a bird, and we both stopped and looked at each other. The bird was bright yellow, and it was funny how he cocked his head and stared at me. I don't know how else to explain it except to say that it felt like he wanted to tell me something. He didn't. Instead, I took his picture, and he flew up into a tree. 

But the whole thing was unsettling. How bright yellow the bird was and the cartoon-like expression on his face. I sent the picture to my friend Natalie, who is an avid bird watcher, and said, What is this? 

She wrote right back: It's a canary. Probably someone's pet who escaped. It might need help. 

Oh my God, I said. Because it all made sense then. Poor bird. He WAS trying to tell me something. Also, I felt like a ding dong. I know what canaries look like! I just never expected to see one hopping around outside on my patio. Anyway, it was too late. The bird had flown off, hopefully, to find help from someone else. 

Stop beating yourself up about it, Natalie told me. It was a few days later, and we were having brunch, and I was still ruminating over the bird. And then I was ruminating over some news I'd read about how there's a bill going through the Ohio Statehouse that would force public libraries to keep objectionable books away from patrons under the age of 18. It's not clear exactly what "objectionable" is, but anyone can file a complaint about any book. 

If they did, you'd have to keep those books hidden behind a desk or wrapped up in paper, and parents would have to give permission for their kid to check a book out. Oh, and if a library worker broke that rule, the state could charge them with a crime and defund the library system. 

What is this? I said to Natalie, because in addition to being an avid bird watcher, she works in government, and therefore, she is my go-to person for what's happening politically in the area. 

Don't worry about it, she said.  

But I was still worried about it. I was thinking about the book I read recently about the collapse of society and how one of the characters said to another one of the characters: "History is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave." 

While I was thinking about this, I was eating French toast with whipped cream and syrup. I rarely eat this kind of food anymore, and my head felt like it was detaching from my neck and floating away. It didn't help that I'd drunk multiple cups of coffee. Every time the waitress came by our table, she'd top off my cup. 

Natalie explained how the legislative process works in Ohio, and I ate two sausages to balance out the sugar rush, and then I drank a glass of water to dilute the caffeine. It's slow! she said. This particular anti-library bill is only sponsored by one guy and no one else has even signed off on it! 

Yet, I said. But I had to admit I felt a million times better. 

We quit discussing the yellow bird and crazy potential laws in the state of Ohio, and talked about our latest writing projects. Did I mention that Natalie is a New York Times Best Selling author? Anyway, she is. And as you can imagine, she was helpful on this subject too. 

After brunch, I checked my neighborhood's social media page where I’d posted about the yellow bird. I was hoping that whoever had lost the bird would chime in. Instead, there were comments about various sightings. People who had seen him in their feeders and playing in their bird baths. It wasn’t the news I was hoping for. 

I am not a person who is good with uncertainty. Will the yellow bird find his way home? Will the crazy book banning bill become a law? Who knows. If I ever run into the bird again, maybe I will ask him. 

Yellow Bird

 

French Toast 

Natalie's new book. Potentially banned? 

Help Is on the Way

At the grocery self-checkout, my husband and I are pros. We have a system. I scan. He packs the bags. But we are at a new grocery store (for us) and the system is not working. When I scan and he packs, the machine freezes and the light blinks on: HELP IS ON THE WAY. But we don’t need help, I say to the clerk who comes over to help us. We know how to do this.

I say it the second time the light comes on and the third. The problem is the machine, I tell the clerk. And the fourth time—the problem is the sensor thingy under the bags! It thinks we’re not placing the item in the bags because we’re using our own bags?! Or it doesn’t recognize a second person doing the bagging?! Maybe we are too fast for it! The fifth time, I am sweating.

Each time the clerk comes over, he replays the tape, I guess to prove that we’re scanning and packing properly? WE ARE! Okay, the sixth time the light comes on, I admit it. It’s all on me. In my flustered sweaty state, I forgot to weigh the grapes before my husband placed them ever so carefully into the bag. But the seventh time, I TOTALLY weighed the bananas, I promise!

The clerk rewinds the tape. His name is Daniel—I see from his nametag, which I finally read after interacting with him another dozen times—and he is giving us a master class in how to deescalate a crisis. As I am raising my voice and one second away from tossing my bananas and stomping out of the store, he’s there again, talking us through it, patiently rewinding the tape and resetting the machine, joking about how if it didn’t mess up, he would be out of a job.

You’re doing great, he says. Keep going.    

I am trying to channel this man later as I talk with a friend who is going through a crisis much more serious than an exasperating grocery store experience. It’s anxiety, and it zaps her when she least expects it, spiraling her out and shutting down her usually bubbly self. I love this person so much and I want to swoop in and fix things for her.

I can’t fix things for her.

This is where I could say something metaphorically clever about how having trouble with the self-checkout at the grocery store is like having a panic attack. But that would be stupid because it’s not the same thing at all. I have had panic attacks before and it felt like I was dying. In the throes of my anxiety, I couldn’t see the hands that were reaching out to help me. I didn’t believe the hands were there. That is the evil trick about anxiety. It leads you to think you are alone in your suffering.

My husband and I finally finished checking out at the grocery store. It only took a couple more assists from Daniel, right at the very end when I was trying to wrangle loose oranges and then when I was trying to pay by credit card, swipe or tap, and oh my God, Daniel, just DO IT FOR ME. He didn’t, but he was immediately standing beside me with his same patient smile, saying, Look at you, you’re getting the hang of it now.

Ha ha Daniel, we both know that you are kidding. But weirdly, it helped.

The thing about stupid metaphors is sometimes they work. When my friend calls later, I tell her I am here for her and she will get through this. A friend said this to me once. 

Come to think of it, SHE’S the friend who said it to me, so we both know that it is true.

 

(Daniel is not shown in the picture but trust me, he's there)

 

 

Driving in the Fog at Night

The writer E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” 

I like that and try to hold onto it, especially lately, when writing has been all fog for me and the headlights are barely flickering. I have good excuses. My normal schedule is off. Trips out of town, and then, a guest staying in the house. I’m tired and random joints hurt. I think it’s the medication I’m taking. That, or I’m old. Also, there’s a rabbit in the garden who’s eating my plants. 

But the real problem is I’m at a place in my book where I’m at a crossroads. Something’s got to happen but I don’t know what. My main character has to make a decision, but for some reason, she’s spinning her wheels. Do this? or Do that? Or maybe do some other thing? Who knows. 

You should see this rabbit, how enormous he is, hopping across my yard after feasting on my garden, which he apparently sees as his personal salad bar. I spend several days with him in a battle of wits. I put fencing up, but the fencing is worthless. He can hop right over it. I try covering each seedling with its own little mesh cage, but he eats the tips off of everything, down to the mesh. 

Meanwhile, in my book I tread water in the same paragraph for days, moving sentences around like I’m the guy in The Plague by Camus. That guy kept rewriting the same sentence over and over again and reading it to his friends, who probably thought he was nuts. They were IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLAGUE. Why was he wasting his time writing a book? 

I head to the garden center and buy a bigger fence. It’s metal and comes in a roll. You have to unwind it and nail it to wooden stakes. It’s a big pain in the neck to set up, but when it’s done, it’s a fortress. I actually feel bad for the rabbit now, his usual food supply out of reach. I plant new plants to replace the ones bitten down to nothing. I leave one outside the perimeter of the fence because I want to be the type of person who can make peace with a rabbit.  

The character in my book is still frozen, teetering on the edge of something. I push her one way and it doesn’t work. I push her in the opposite direction and that doesn’t work either. I fix my broken headlights. I drive on through the fog. 

Confession: I love the guy in The Plague, how silly he is and how hopeful. Maybe he is never going to finish his book. Maybe he is going to catch the plague. If he doesn’t catch the plague, he is going to die eventually anyway. So what. I like how he keeps fiddling with his words. I like how he shares his story with his friends.

  

a peace offering

Go Deeper

Write about me, my daughter says, when I tell her I don’t know what to write about this week. She is visiting from DC for the long weekend, and we are lying on our backs in a hair salon having our hair shampooed. My hair stylist asks me if I want a hand and arm massage. I didn’t know this service came with a haircut. No thanks, I say. I’m good. 

Mom, my daughter says. Do it!

I do, and I am immediately happy. The warm lotion, the pulling and stretching of each finger, but also, the softly lit room, the scent of rosemary? the tinkly notes of spa music, my daughter only a lotion-y arm-length away. I never do stuff like this. 

Correction: I never do stuff like this unless she is here and prodding me along. It’s the same at the shops we browse in later, our new hairdos all fresh and spiffy. I just want to buy a couple of t-shirts, but she talks me into a trendy pair of jeans, a swingy-looking top. Think: fun, she says. 

And I do. It’s magic. No, my daughter says with a laugh, it’s retail therapy. We’re drinking frou frou coffee drinks on the front porch, and I’m pointing out the flowers I planted since the last time she visited, these purply globes called allium which make me think of Horton Hears a Who, how round and boing-y they are and who knows what kind of worlds they contain, what sweet voices are calling out from the hearts of them. 

There’s a clover patch my husband planted next to the boing-y flowers, and every time he looks, he finds a four-leaf clover. I’m not lying, I tell our daughter. See for yourself. We go back to our frou frou drinks and compare our horoscopes. A few weeks ago my son and daughter-in-law showed us a silly astrology app that’s so random and dumb that it's got to be AI-generated. You plug in your date and time and place of birth (yeah, I know, we’re giving away our private information to some company who will use it to try to sell us something later or steal our identities, but ah, well) and each day an absurd list of dos and don’ts spits out. 

For example, Today, mine is: 

Do—Morning rituals, Lists, Weird hat

Don’t—Leftovers, Restriction, Dirty Laundry

I am embarrassed to tell you how much time I spend pondering this. But I am a person who likes to find meaning in things. All of us are like this to one extent or another. Anyway, this is what the book I’m reading, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell, says. 

It’s human nature to try to make sense of the world, but what happens when there’s too much information bombarding us every second of the day? The answer, according to the author, is: Not good. It's how otherwise rational people fall for cults and conspiracy theories. 

Not me, though, I think, donning my weird hat and avoiding the laundry, swinging back and forth on the porch swing with my daughter, having fun.

Boing-y flowers

 

Look!

This book is good!! And also, it's disturbing!

I'm supposed to go deeper today,
but WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 

Holes

Last week at this time I was digging a hole. It was three feet by three feet and maybe six or seven inches deep. It was hard work, and immediately my heart was pumping, and my hands around the shovel started to ache. I was standing in a very large field, and it was raining, and I knew that when I finished digging this particular hole, I was going to move onto another. 

How this came about was my husband and I were visiting our son and daughter-in-law and basically jumping into their lives for a few days, and this meant showing up at a farm to help one of their friends with whatever farm-related tasks needed to be done. What needed to be done was dig holes. 

I was working alongside my son, who was using a pitchfork to pull straw off the ground. The point of the holes, the straw, was to get the field ready for planting. Ooh! I said to the farmer when he explained. This is like the lasagna method!

*The lasagna method is an alternative to the more traditional "tilling" method. Instead of tearing up grass where you want to plant, you lay down cardboard or newspapers and make layers with grass clippings and leaves. You do this in the fall, and then later, in the spring, you've got some nice soil to work with. The farmer was using a thick layer of straw, which he'd covered with a tarp. Now, the tarp was removed and our job was: 

1. Fork off the straw.

2. Dig a hole.

3. Add compost from the giant compost pile at the edge of the field.

4. Repeat until the entire field was ready to be planted.

While my son was forking and I was digging, I was chatting with another volunteer, comparing notes about our gardens and what kind of compost we like to use. For example, she likes to use deer hides, animal blood, and dead fish. 

Oh, I said, I use eggshells and coffee grounds, but otherwise, samesies. 

It was mother's day and for various reasons, mother's day is a hard day for me. I was glad to be digging holes in a muddy field and hanging out with my husband and son and daughter-in-law and texting sporadically with my daughter and listening to my new gardening friend talk about how I shouldn't be scared of eating stinging nettles. 

*Stinging nettle is an herb that I have growing in my garden, but now I am afraid to harvest it because like it says in the name, it stings! So, I've been pretty much leaving it alone, but apparently, if you put it in hot water, it removes the stinging, and then you can eat it how you would spinach.  

The trick, my new gardening friend told me, is: Use gloves and tongs. She was pausing for a moment in her digging, and she bent down suddenly and picked up what looked like a rock, Look, it's a beaver skull, she said. 

Well, there's something you don't see every day, I said, and then I went back to digging my hole and marveling at my son who was pitchforking like a pro and stopping every now and then to text back and forth with my daughter. 

When we were all done working, we had a big feast in the farmer's barn. I felt like I had been through something but I didn't know exactly what. Work, rain, mud, and dead animal skulls. But also, a lovely meal with family and new friends. 

Before I left, I asked the farmer if I could have a few of his bean seeds. He jumped right up and returned with a handful. Isn't this what it's all about? he said. 

Yesterday, I dug holes in my own garden. It was sunny and hot and the holes were small and relatively easy to dig. I planted the seeds, and then I ate a big bowl of stinging nettles. Ha ha. I'm joking. I am not quite ready to do that yet, but when I do, you will be the first to know. 

holes