Long years the gardener with no garden.
Raking others' leaves. Pulling others' weeds. Pruning others' trees.
All for a paycheck. Walking street corners hustling my craft,
flashing my Felcos to those willing to pay. Soaked in cold Northwest
drizzle and gloom, thinking: better the chill of rain, better the
vicarious thrill of clients' dirt on my hands than recycled air and
cubicle walls closing in. How gladly I would sell my body's warmth
for a chance to sink my fingers into your soil.
That's me: putting the whore in
horticulture. What choice did I have? No land of my own. Keeper of no
garden not born of 1.5 cubic foot bags and dumped into cracked
discount pots and buckets on whatever meager balcony or porch a
city's lease provided. Coaxing sickly beans and carrots from
too-small containers in too-little light; cursing those with land and
no inclination to work it, those with sunshine to spare and and no
leaves to catch it. But no more!
At long last onward and upward (well,
onward and Northward anyway). Out of the urban stacks of strangers, pets
and furniture; away from their 12-month contracts and landlord
lieges. Onward into the cinder block sprawl of this post-war widows'
suburbia, with its 30-year contracts, bank lieges, and — most
importantly — backyards!
So it is that, clambering to the
rooftop, I survey the grounds of this manor as though from a sweeping
promontory. I gaze out over the small patch of empty lawn wrapped in
broken blue fence and see only the garden it will become. I see a
home for my long-captive potted plants; I see my daughter picking
apples in the fall; I see my wife cutting Dahlias for bouquets; I see
myself reminding my wife that she promised to dig up the Dahlias to
bring in for the winter; I see myself digging up Dahlias to bring in
for the winter.
Oh, and I see no fewer than five stray
cats who seem to think the future gardens of Fencebroke Promontory
are to resemble nothing so much as a litter box.
For now, I'm off to chase cats. But
stick around, for soon … a garden!
