Sign Right Here

My furry friend, so cute and so astoundingly destructive, has vacated, leaving no trace of corpsey carcass odors under my shed. I am glad for that, because reading about murderous removal options rattled my Buddhist adjacent inner compass nearly out of operational balance. Just as it seemed all less lethal options were doomed to fail, something caused Chompy Von Chompenstein to wave a little white flag. Sonic spikes, maybe? Those may have been worth the money after all, and I am leaving them in place, learning to embrace the noise as worthwhile. My stubborn persistence itself may have been a factor, but the leading candidate for final blow status might be the toilet bowl lozenge I tossed under the shed and then sprayed with ammonia. This putrid chemical reaction was an act of desperation, and perhaps it did the trick. We will never know, as this is not a TV show and thus, there will be no tearful exit interview. Wouldn’t that be great though? I would put even more money in the sweaty upturned palm of Amazon Prime if I could witness a groundhog exit interview!

All but one of the gnawed plants survived, and I have cleaned their rough edges, trimming broken stems, moderating hasty sawtooth haircuts with the neat snip of pruners. Robust evidence of new growth is calming and encouraging. The main salad bar, an area initially intended to host medicinal plants, has now been replanted with a “things groundhogs don’t like to eat” theme. These are wonderfully strong smelling Marigolds, Appalachian Mountain Mint, Lavender, and Hyssop. I replaced the Comfrey with Wild Quinine, which is untested, but promising, and slightly exotic. I also pruned the ten foot tall Pokeweed that I am inviting to grow like a feature plant, and this overall combination of wild natives and tamed cultivars in my yard brings the non purist in me a great feeling of delight.

At this moment, my garden has become a form of primary relationship. True to form, I am investing heavily while expecting uninterrupted goodness in return. I certainly know better than to fall into such a trap. The last five years of my life especially could be considered “know better” boot camp, but like all humans I am prone to losing sight of hard lessons.  To expect destruction to give me a pass is leaning into part foible, part outright arrogance. More misery is added to the mix when I hope that my adaptation to loss will somehow yield rewards, as though enduring life’s insults gives me a favored customer coupon that can be applied as a hedge against more of the same.

I see the error in hindsight, right next to visions of me, fiercely traipsing my garden like Boudica with a super soaker, engaged in raw unselfconscious levels of territorial battle. As my mother-in-law was fond of saying, it is what it is. For this particular moment, a certain victory can be detected as the dust clears, and all is calm. The jungle is nigh, which comes in July, when the mountains of Western North Carolina offer up this beautiful broad rolling topography to an unstoppable force of green. If I am lucky, my garden will be loud with blooms of Zinnia, Rudbeckia, and several shades of Coneflower.

In these last days of June, I will get a few more plants in the ground, and relocate the surviving bits Comfrey down by the street, where it can be up for grabs yet far from permanent shelter, available for some errant nomadic nibbling. Then, I will step back, fall in love once again with the fireflies, and encourage my good fortune to sign a contract with the lush overkill of summer. “It’s a drunk with life situation” the contract may state, “a gregarious mirror to recognize or deny, which also allows for being pragmatic.” Sign right here.

Beginning

There is only one first entry,
The first hello, the first handshake, new, and maybe a little shy.

All my life I have loved the moment before choosing,
The wide world of choice so vast it takes your breath away.

I will say “that, I want that” and sometimes the answer is yes,
And sometimes it is not.

The asking itself is a form of freedom, perhaps even privilege,
And I wonder if the greatest privilege of all is self definition.

All my life, once I was old enough to operate within the lines of personality,
I felt that making a choice, a start, a single pointed action
Eliminated other choices, the beginning of new things also the end, removing the open sense of possibility.

This blog will hopefully examine what it is to have a choice,
What it is to make a choice, to observe patterns that obfuscate choice
And, to explore out loud how we choose in the midst of opposing pulls.

So here this is, here I am. Feeling the colors, a dance of variation, and picking this one, for the beginning.