Me at the garden centre: I’ll take one of everything!!!
(Exactly what I used to say every time I walked into a bar)
It’s always a splurge and it’s very exciting and I am as optimistic as can be and I involve as many people as possible – we are talking plants here, not the bar, although I get the synonym-glut – and it costs me around five hundred dollars but the money feels somehow fake and when I’m driving home all scented and heady, my heart still pounding, I get a pang at a red light which surprises me because I’m so happy and then another pang because, you know, the optimism is pulling out and then all sorts of pangs as the excitement curdles and my confidence wilts and my bank account is suddenly in the back of my throat like a fucking tickertape and by the time I get home I fit snugly into the definition of insanity and go straight into the house and don’t say hi and Daisy does that emoji clench teeth face at Lily who does it back.
Oh and did I mention the gigantic bag of grass seed? It’s the coated kind that comes with its own mulchyness and is roughly the price of parmesan
I don’t exactly worry about my new wards who have already become little enemies just like the unpainted edges of the cupboards that seemed like a good idea to do in a different colour at the time but the can of paint is still at the store, you know, ordered and paid for about a month ago but not picked up because of inertia mostly and also to be fair because of nice weather and furthermore I’m a little sheepish about picking it up at this point in case they ring a bell or something and somebody hollers She’s finally here! You win, Britney! May 28!
Half my lifetime ago I was too sheepish to pick up my $500 gym membership at the new downtown WHY so I never did
Jesus. The things I’ve done to avoid embarrassment. I remember my dad used to do things that made me die on his behalf and I asked him about it once after he forgot to get off the chairlift at a ski hill and sailed past me on the downswing, smiling.
He said that the older you get the less things like that bother you and I’ve been waiting ever since
Anyway I think I am setting traps for myself, you know? Maybe all the plants and the cupboard edges and all that rhubarb there’s no room for because of all those leeks in the fridge and the bulk sprouted spelt flour and the two cans of tennis balls and the new dandelion extractor and my grass seed investment and the two wrinkled up but not dead yet hostas and all the imaginary above ground swimming pools in all my imaginary carts are ways to get me editing Chapter 3 because in comparison that little shitshow chapter is a walk in the park.
Which is exactly what I do instead of any of it
I can’t get anywhere with the mounds of chores and I can’t get anywhere with The Poole Obits either so I get my running shoes on and yup, I go the fuck out for a big walk around the edges of the bluffs and then before you know it I’m down on the beach, shoes off, getting a full-on sand massage as I walk tai-chi-slow in an inch of waterfrill which wigged Spellcheck out considerably but I am just fine with.
I don’t for a second think about how stupid I look and maybe that’s what my dad meant
I don’t know. Maybe I give myself too many breaks but after all these years together, you know, I have learned to live with myself and laugh at myself, too, and by the time I get home like three hours later none of it seems as overwhelming as it did when I left. I spot a little pocket right in front of the elephant ear hostas where the purple velvet flowers can go and then when I walk to get the shovel which takes forever and maybe three trips around the property before I find it which allows me to see more pockets and openings and opportunities and it’s not perfect, but I get almost half the flowers planted and lavish the others with promises except for the sunflowers which are basically doomed.
Also on the walk I decided how to handle the difficult chapter and it’s maybe because I was listening to a podcast featuring Rikki Lee Jones and she was talking about how she always just innovated when she was stuck and it got me thinking. I mean I’d thought this before a couple of weeks ago but did not put it into practice but now I think I will allow it, you know, give it a whirl and it’s this: I am going to suddenly – on page 70 – switch modes from prose to play. I mean they say write the book you want to read and I’d love to read a book that switched between those two and let’s face it, writing a novel is tiresome and anything we can do to keep ourselves amused we should do except for wine unless editing.
And I mean writing is a great big gift, of course, but still it’s a fucking grind at times and that’s when I’m going to switch because if it’s a grind to write it’s going to be at least a bit of a grind to read
Although there are good grinds and even great ones and probably the greatest is The Grapes of Wrath which you just sort of have to push yourself through but for the rest of your life – it’s probably been 40 years for me – little bits of it sprout occasionally and you remember it and exactly the way it made you feel and that’s what reading’s all about and writing is all about giving that valuable stuff to others.
