What you notice first are weeds. Dandelions about to seed. A tangle of bushes at the base of an old post that holds the white mailbox.
Aging exteriors
Everything is dusted in pollen and overrun, yet it is not altogether unwelcoming. You deem it a place where an elderly widow must reside, living on a fixed income and marking time until one generation cedes to the next, and a young couple or developer purchases, remodels, or rebuilds entirely.
You imagine the occupant: she is parked passively in front of a television, visited periodically by an anonymous caretaker. That is, if you imagine her at all.
As for the yard? Perhaps you consider her property an eyesore and wish she’d simply clean it up. Perhaps you understand it may be a matter of budget, or changing priorities. She is beyond tending to these things herself. The once pretty little garden. The once pretty little cottage.
Gardening
It is Saturday. Landscaping services are coming and going. Workers are balanced on ladders and walking on rooftops. There is noise: blowers, mowers, motors you cannot identify. Strong men are cleaning gutters, trimming hedges, and cutting grass. Women are on their knees and in their gardening gloves with cultivators and trowels. They are setting out their flats of pansies and pinks, readying to plant.
This is a neighborhood of small spaces, or used to be, though many have been renovated to double, triple or quadruple their original size. A few remain starter homes, perfect for newlyweds or empty nesters.
A good house
You may be walking your dog, taking your morning run, or cruising through these quiet streets on your way to visit a friend. You glance at the house and dismiss it.
But it is a good house. Sturdy. Not entirely run down. The trim has been painted recently and someone has torn off a thicket of vines that were consuming the exterior. Dwarf azaleas line an area of the front garden, red and fuchsia. On the stoop sit two stone planters, cracked from extremes in heat and cold. Each contains another azalea, in full bloom.
A promising bed
Eventually, we are all the ivy-covered surface, the warm, worn brick, the contradictions of facades and flesh that weather, conspiring against immediate notice. Yet our bodies persist in celebrating stories. In wanting more. In seeking beauty. And finding it.
Spring is suddenly alive and vibrant. I am ravenous, although I am tired. Desirous, despite feeling slowed. I am captivated by softness in the air, a small measure of returning strength, and the hues of floral abundance everywhere I look. I wish to garden. To hold the rich earth between my fingers. To feel.
I am not made for marking time, and I cannot tend to tidying my bed. I am stronger, but not yet strong enough. You must take me as I am – weeds and blooms. With more seasons to come. More tales to spin.
…
Nice
I can just imagine the blooming bounty of those azaleas. I am not made for marking time either, and I wish you continuing renewed strength this spring!
You know I love a good metaphor and this is a fine one indeed. (And it occurs to me in reading it that weeds are a heck of a lot heartier than blossoms.)
Have you read Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer? Full of plant and nature allegory. And quite a bit of it about, ahem, sex.
You might enjoy it…the book, that is. 😉
Haven’t read it. Long (parenting) day, and interrupted… metaphors. Ah, a little Spring dreaming, even through those hardy hearty weeds.
It’s a good house you live in and you’re tending to it well.
I’m glad you’re getting stronger.
Wonderful read. I agree with Kristen. You would love Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer or any of her works.
Husband and I just got into a massive stupid argument over whether or not dandelions and violets were weeds. Just because the value of something isn’t readily apparent does not render it useless, unlovely, or unlovable. I think, anyway.
This is beautiful. I love the image of us all becoming a brick wall overgrown with ivy … and also the ways that the turning seasons manifest in our very bodies. Lovely.
Metaphor or not, I love those sorts of houses and they always do fire my imaginings of lives lived in all their richness and sorrows, the passing of time. I think of these sorts of things whenever I walk in my neighborhood, wondering about the old man who stands facing north every afternoon looking at nothing that anyone else can see, his purple wisteria in full bloom now as is his white one.
As for books, this brings to mind a wonderful children’s book, “The Leaf Men,” that is about the miraculous and healing properties of the garden and it’s pitched battle between helpful and dark forces.