Life as a Garden

I can feel the moisture from the damp grass seeping into the fabric of my jeans as I kneel, pulling up the sunflower seedlings that have sprouted beneath the bird feeder. I push my hair back and accidentally smear a bit of mud across my cheek. A row of house finches sits on the telephone line above my head, calling to one another as they watch me work, waiting for a chance to swoop in and scatter more seeds as they feast.  Sure enough, the moment I stand up and move away they fly in.
 
 It is so early that most of the neighbors are still asleep and as I work it feels as though I have the street to myself. Deadheading the roses, snipping lavender buds to dry, staking up a drooping delphinium, I am alone with my thoughts and I relish the quiet.  

 If you were to ask me if I am a gardener, I would say no. I never quite feel as though I am entitled to own the title. I don’t know enough. The evidence of my mistakes surrounds me each time I step out my back door. That phlox was planted too close to the front of the border. This rose is too shaded. That Hosta is wilting in a spot with too much sun. I am constantly planting and transplanting, adjusting to the demands of my tiny space. I do and then undo and do again. And that, I have decided, is precisely the appeal. 

The harshest lesson life teaches us is that there are few do-overs. We get one chance and then have to live with our mistakes. We make our beds and learn to lie in them. But a flower bed is another story. We make it, unmake it and then make it again. As often as we please. This, I think as I stand and survey what I have done, I can control. There is not much else in my life that I can say that about.
    
Another appeal of a garden is that it gives back. It returns the love we plant into the soil. A garden allows us to chart our progress. This is a rare thing in an ordinary life. Most of us work at marriages, at parenting and careers without the space and leisure to step back and take measure of what we’re doing. It’s only later, sometimes too much later, that we can see our mistakes, but by then its too late. But my garden guides me as I go. Too little water, too much sun, not enough fertilizer and I know. All I have to do is take the time to really look. And then I can make it right.
    
There is a spot on the patio where I can stand and trace the growth of a young tree I planted this spring , measuring its height against the back of the garage on the lot behind mine. Each day its uppermost branches stretch a but more and soon it will be as tall as the structure behind  the fence. The tree will be here long after I’m gone and it pleases me to watch it grow.
   
 I can’t wish away the the physical effects of the years behind me. I cannot undo the mistakes I have made in my life. But what I can do is step out the back door each morning, coffee in hand, and take a good long look at what’s in front of me. And if something isn’t right I can dig right in and start all over again.


Cheryl-Anne Millsap’s writes for The Spokesman-Review. This essay appeared in The Spokesman-Review's "Pinch" edition. Cheryl-Anne is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Dream Season in the City of Lilacs

   In the dream I stepped up on the porch of an old house, walked across weathered and warped floorboards and, cupping my hands around my face to block the outside light, peered into one of the clouded glass panes of one of the front windows. Through the dust I could see a few pieces of furniture—a table and chair in the corner, an old bed frame—but it was obvious the house was empty and had been so for a long time.

    I wasn’t sure how I got to the house but I could tell it had once been someone’s home. As I looked around I noticed a tall lilac tree growing at the end of the porch. It was as tall as the house and its leafy branches, heavy with deep purple blooms, spilled over the rail, forming a canopy around the porch swing. The air was filled with their fragrance.
   
    At that point something woke me and as the dream slipped away, fading like a wisp of smoke, I opened my eyes to the sound of robins, the early birds who wake up long before the sun rises, calling “Cheer up, Cheer up” to one another.

    Through the window I watched the sky grow slowly lighter. When a light breeze blew and ruffled the curtains at the window, the fragrance of lilacs trailed through the room and I realized the perfume must have stolen into my dreams and become part of what I was imagining as I slept, the way a newborn’s cries or morning voices on the bedside radio might do. I’d caught the scent and my mind had simply written a story to go with it. Isn’t it wonderful what the human brain can do?

    I lay there as long as I could, unwilling to leave the warmth of my bed, the music of the birds and the faint perfume of the lilacs, before I slipped out of bed and into my day.

    The first lilacs in Spokane were planted almost 110 years ago, when J.J. Browne, one of the city’s founders, planted a pair at his home. Others followed and Spokane quickly adopted the fragrant flower and they were planted at homes in every neighborhood. By the 1930s we were the “Lilac City” and a section of Manito Park was planted as a lilac garden. This time of year it is filled with people who stop what they are doing and come to the park to smell the spring flowers.

    That afternoon, after my walk through the park, I went to the corner of my backyard where lilacs grow. I sat down on my grandmother’s wrought iron bench, under an umbrella of branches laden with cascading blooms, and let the day end as it had begun.

The Girl in the Garden

For a few minutes tonight, I was 8 years old again.

After dinner, I stayed outside playing in the back yard until I suddenly realized the sun was long gone and it was getting too dark to see clearly. The lights in the house were bright through the windows.

Still unwilling to go inside and let the day fade away completely, I sat on the back step listening to the birds sing out in the dark as they called it a day. Something must have dropped down my collar while I was digging around under the rose bushes and I wriggled as I tried to find whatever was tickling me. My hair was tangled with leaves and petals.

The air was cool and soft and smelled like flowers and dirt. My cats stalked imaginary prey in the grass. I was tired and dirty and perfectly content to be exactly where I was at that moment.

When I finally opened the back door and stepped inside, I didn't feel at all like a grandmother. I felt like a girl who'd made the most of a long summer afternoon.

That's the beauty of this stage I call my third life. Sometimes, when I least expect it, I turn a corner and find myself.