Mothers & Persistence

Many years ago, my mother travelled with a group from her church to England. On this trip, she visited the birthplace of John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan denomination of the Protestant Methodist Church. When she returned, she gave me a few packets of seeds from the shop associated with the site.

Although I was still a student, I had a small garden in my rented suburban house, in which I grew a few flowers, the proverbial and ubiquitous tomatoes as well as a six-foot by ten-foot lawn. I made every effort to plant and grow the seeds but without success. Instead, in an attempt at atonement, I wrote a short story, “John Wesley’s Hollyhocks,” and included it in my Master of Arts Degree thesis in Creative Writing. The opening paragraph begins:

Mrs. Fortinbrough approached the ground, all her weight braced heavily against the brick border of the flowerbed and, stroking the fine, new shoots, raised her face to the window. The girl let the curtain fall back over the window and disappeared. Her daughter was no more interested in this season’s hollyhocks than she was interested in going to church….

This is a story about the relationship between an adolescent daughter and her mother. As we can all imagine and is indicated by the closure of the curtain, the relationship is strained at this stage. Happily, my actual relationship with my mother, though frequently contentious—as is any interpersonal interaction—was healthy and positive. Her passing has not lessened my love for and dependence on her wisdom.

This year, for the first time in nearly thirty years, I have a garden which has eventually proved to be responsive to hollyhock propagation. When I first planted the seeds, directly into the soil in the spring of 2018 with absolutely no response, the letdown was palpable. The soil in these high desert plains is river-bottom clay—as hard as rock when it’s dry. This spring, I started hollyhocks and delphinium among other varieties in the proper potting soil in seedling pots.

I then prepared an area of the garden with compost and other organic material. When I transplanted the seedlings, I had to protect the young plants from the wild rabbits with plastic collars. Once the hollyhocks began to grow above where the bunnies could reach the leaves, the plants flourished.

In many ways, I equate gardening with writing. Persistence is the key to success. As Steven Pressfield remarks in his writers’ guide, The War of Art, procrastination is a form of resistance. Persistence and perseverance get results, just as Mrs. Fortinbrough will get results with her daughter:

…Just as the hollyhocks had needed her care and discipline, so did the daughter. It was not too late for her roots to be tapped and the plant to grow straight again….

April Showers Bring...

...Mud, and moss, and mess, oh my. But also spring flowers!!! I want flowers. I want grass. Nope. I've got moss. It's pretty. Beautiful in fact, but it ain't flowers. This seems a simple enough goal, but then, you don't know my gardening history. :( The phrase, "shrinking violets"applies to a plant's reaction to seeing me in a garden center. I think the violets can smell the death.

It all began harmlessly enough. My goal: Clean up the patio so I could sit and read a cozy mystery or a sweet romance novel in relative comfort on our on-again-off-again temperate spring days. I live in Virginia and Wednesday saw a 30 degree temperature change in about three hours. Next week? Who knows? Maybe 90s? So I’ve got to take advantage of the temperate days while we’ve got them.

So I started tackling the seating area in the back. It’s like the children’s story, “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie”. Do you know it? Well, this mouse starts out just wanting a cookie, then wanting milk, then wanting to draw a picture for the front of the fridge, etc., etc.

I started raking leaves, which led to tripping on the patio pavers, which led to pulling them all up, which led to grading, re-paving, decorating, planting plants, creating a focal point, which led to tearing down an unsightly tree house, to finally looking back at my patio, remembering my purpose here and…

Today, it’s raining. Oh well, why don’t you check out one of our Classic and Cozy writers, and enjoy them outside while the temperate spring days last. I sure wish I could.

1000 Words

For writers, it's not the image but the words that create the image in the reader's mind.

Take for instance, this image: 

 or this: 

or this:

or this:

These are all from my newly acquired garden in the extreme north midwest. Each one has its distinct and unique story. And each has its place in my own story which I have told in my recent blog for In Maine. I reprint that post here:

For the past few weeks, I’ve been living in Cathryn Marcher’s garden — without the pumpkins.

Since moving into our new home, I’ve had the pleasure of gardening for the first time in seven years. While living in a city-bound apartment, I made do with potted plants on the balcony. Now I have about 5,000 square feet of lawn, trees and flowerbeds.

I also have hundreds of volunteers — not the helping kind! Since our lawn did not appear from under the layers of snow until late April, trees and shrubs have had free reign to seed the grass with their own progeny: honeysuckle, ash tree, morning glory, dandelions had all grown to the height of at least six inches by the time our new lawn-mower arrived. 

Removing these volunteers from my grassy realm proved beyond my capabilities. Even days of crawling on hands and knees, digging out taproots and consigning leaves and seedheads to the compost bin made no difference to the number of seedlings propagating amongst the blades of green. Even our resident bunny has not made a dent although it has helped in the cropping of the blades’ height in its grazing area.

To my delight, the flowerbeds are less endangered by weed-growth. Although Ground Elder (aka Queen Anne’s Lace) has raised many heads in the lawn and along the back fence, the perennials such as Peony and Daffodils, Iris and Gladiola have a much stronger will to exist. 

Another joy is the abundance of lilacs. When I was a child living in Maine, my favorite hiding place was a grove of lilac bushes at the back of our house. I attempted to grow lilacs on the balcony, but the plant never took hold despite coddling. Because of my fondness for the blossoms, I had them in my wedding bouquet along with red roses and the requisite Baby’s Breath (Gypsophilia).My four lilac bushes had grown so tall, they were competing with the Locust for space and encroaching on the neighbor’s property. With the information from a tree surgeon that lilacs can be treated as shrubs, I cropped and snipped until all the dead foliage and blossoms were gone and the bushes had the energy to produce fragrant spears again. 

From Chapter One: “Rupert smirked, turned his gaze back to the window, waved the mist out of his face, inhaled the summer rain deep into his lungs along with the scent of white lilacs.” 

From Chapter Four: ‘Noam Snyder pulled up on the reins, bringing the old buggy alongside Cathryn’s front yard, tipping his cap and wiping beads of sweat from his brow. “Mighty hot for a lady to be working like that,” he called out to his tenant. 

‘“Now’s the best time,” she called back, straightening her back, pressing a dirty hand on her lower spine. “These pumpkins won’t win any prizes this year unless someone gives them a hand.” She wiped her neck with a handkerchief and wacked at the weeds in her pumpkin patch. “I swear these dandelions know I’ve got better things to do. They just grow out of spite.”’ 

From Chapter Fifteen: “Running and stumbling through the woods like a mad woman got her as far as the clump of lilac she’d hidden in as a little girl, afraid to go home for the licking her father promised when she refused to help her mother with the washing because she wanted to play the piano for a few minutes more.” 

As Pavane for Miss Marcher illustrates, gardening and lilacs are features of my life in fiction and fiction in my life. My latest novel set Down In Maine is available in print and digital editions on all online booksellers and by order from me! Digital Edition $3.95 / Signed Print Edition $15.00 inc postage.

I'm going back to my garden in a bit but wanted everyone to know where I am!

All the best,

Leigh Verrill-Rhys 
Writer, Gardener, Photographer and 1000 other things!

PS: May 28, 2018


And the reward for all the work: 

This pair have never entered the back garden before. I finished the circle flowerbed with hydrangea as centerpiece and crocosmia bulbs surrounding it on Sunday afternoon. By 5:30PM, the ducks that wandered up and down our street, scrounging in the gutters, had taken up residence at the circle's edge. The drake on guard as always.

Now the bunny, "Scamp" to me, has company along with the squirrels and house sparrows that nest under our patio awning. 

Happy Memorial Day to all and God Bless our Troops, Veterans and their families. Thank you for your service.

RETIREMENT

My friends, my peers and many of my relatives are beginning to retire or have already.  As a woman of a certain age, I’ve had the opportunity to have a variety of careers and have, so far, retired 3 times, if you count when I left the practice of law to have my first child. I’ve also not worked for long periods of time.

Women like me grew up in a time when we weren’t expected to have a serious career and working after having children was frowned upon.  Even when our children had grown or at least were in school all day, going back to work wasn’t a requirement.  Many of my peers stayed home indefinitely being volunteers, playing golf, tennis and bridge and joining garden clubs and the Junior League. Women my age have already figured out how to make life worth living without working.

On the other hand, my husband and just about every male I know in my generation has been working at his career since his mid to early twenties and has put his job in the center of his life. Putting work first was how we were raised and how we raised our kids.  Mothers, including me, went to the sports events, the back to school nights, the school trips and extracurricular outings.

I have come to realize that particular division of labor was not great for anyone.  I think kids suffer not having both their parents involved in their every day lives.  Being the main breadwinner also put an unfair burden on husbands who felt that their family’s livelihood was entirely on their shoulders.  And it was not good for wives and mothers who never gained the confidence that can come from having a career.

I live in Manhattan now.  We moved here fifteen years ago after raising our children in the suburbs.  Because city living is such a communal situation I get to closely observe my fellow citizens and see, either on the elevator in my building, on the crosstown bus or just walking the neighborhood streets, how the next generation deals with their kids.  My takeaway is how much more involved fathers are now. It’s as likely that a dad will be escorting a child to school on the bus or running alongside their preschooler riding his scooter on the way to nursery school. 

I also get to hear the conversations. I get teary for what my husband and my children missed, when I overhear a dad and his son or daughter talk about their day and question what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard. The conversations in such settings come about naturally and lead to important issues. I had the same kind when I ferried my children to their practices and lessons or did carpools. As anyone who’s had them knows, they’re priceless and a great basis for later years when kids aren’t so apt to be open.  Back in the day, very few dads ever had the benefit.

But on top of that loss, that special relationship with their children, many men and some woman I know now have a hard time facing retirement.  They worked all their lives, focused on their jobs instead of cultivating other interests and have no idea what to do once they don’t have that job. 

It’s true that some have more or less figured it out.  I’m thinking of the golfers who throw themselves into the game the same way they threw themselves into their careers. Golf can—at least until you’re in your mid to late 80’s—for some be something to focus on.  But not everyone is a golfer or wants to be one.  Some retirees travel and can’t wait to take cruises to Alaska and Europe and the Caribbean.  Others, like my husband, who is not retired yet, but wishes he were, garden. But it’s the rare individual who finds golf or a life of travel, or even gardening, as engaging or stimulating as the job they once had.

Of course I’m talking about the advantaged, not the retirees who are struggling financially.  But I’m not so sure it’s any different for them.  Their jobs may not have been as engaging or rewarding, but like the more affluent, the burden of supporting their families was on them and like people of means, if they’re reaching retirement age, they too have to figure out how to find meaning in their days.

Bottom line, defining ourselves by our jobs has major limitations and perhaps it’s the one area where women of a certain age have the advantage.

A Sure Sign of Spring

posted by Jayne Ormerod

     As snow still covers the ground in my home in southeastern Virginia (where “normal” temps are in the high 50s this time of year—today we’re expected to top out at 29!) it seems natural for my thoughts to turn to spring.  More specifically, spring activities, such as gardening.  So I thought I’d dig out and dust off an article I wrote almost 10 years ago, but is still relevant today, and gives me hope that spring will be here soon!

YARD OF THE MONTH

My first gardening catalog came addressed to “Robert S. Jones or Current Resident."  That’s me.  Current resident.  We’d just made our fourth move in two years in conjunction with my husband’s career in the US Navy.  He had orders for twenty-four months.  Why, that’s long enough to plant perennials, I thought! 

                I showed a great deal of restraint when I limited myself to a $500 order from that gardening catalog.  A rainbow of reds, whites, blues, pinks and yellows.  A selection of varying heights and curious textures.  My home would stand out from the others in this new, cookie-cutter neighborhood.  Okay, so I would eat nothing by macaroni and cheese for two months, but with the Yard of the Month awarded by my neighborhood association came a $50 gift certificate to the garden center, so it would balance the financial scales a bit.  And based on the glossy catalog pictures of what my gardens would look like, I was a sure winner.

One sunny day in early April a small box arrived.  A very small box filled with more than a hundred two-inch plants that looked like they should be on life support.  But hope springs eternal, and I had faith these would grow quickly to look like the advertisement in no time.

                The instructions said I should plant the garden as soon as possible.  Hmmm.  I hadn’t actually thought about that part of it.  I’d ordered enough flora to fill three very large areas, all of which were currently sprouting bright green weeds.  As any good navy wife would do, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

                First I outlined the beds with edging bricks, hauled in station-wagon loads of 50 per day.  That took two weeks.  Next step was to loosen the top four inches of soil.  After three days of back-breaking labor, I broke down and rented a tiller.  Then the dump truck deposited a load of topsoil in the middle of the driveway when I wasn’t looking. I had to borrow my neighbor’s car to run to the hardware store to purchase a wheelbarrow and move the dirt before I could even get my car out of the garage.  The important lesson here was exactly how much dirt fit into a dump truck, most of which my neighbor ended up using to fill in his swimming pool.  Thinking I’d learned my lesson on the soil, I opted for hauling in mulch bag by bag by bag by bag.  One-hundred and seventy-two, if memory serves.

                It took over a month, but I celebrated the day I popped the teeny plants into their tiny holes, being careful to adhere to the paint-by-number instructions in order to achieve the same stunning effect shown in their catalog.  Little tiny specks of plants spaced twelve to eighteen inches apart.  It looked like a barren wasteland.  I wanted to cry.  It looked pathetic.  All that work….  My back ached, my legs ached, my hands ached.  But most of all, my budget ached.  I was in for over $1,500, once I figured in the repair costs after I’d run over the tiller I’d parked behind my car.  I reminded myself it would all be worth it when my husband returned from deployment to find our yard looked like it should be on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.

                That was my very expensive lesson in patience.  Having been raised in a well-established mill town, I’d taken flora planted by long-dead ancestors for granted.  I had no idea it took fifty years for ivy to climb the brick exteriors, or forsythia bushes to grow as tall as the houses.  I expected instant gratification in my gardens.  Needless to say, my sparse plantings did not earn me Yard of the Month, let alone even a "wow" from my husband when he returned home.

                We moved nine times over the next fourteen years.  I never again made the mistake of undertaking significant landscaping projects I would never be around long enough to enjoy, but at every place we lived I left some small patch of perennials or a few puny peonies for a future nomadic tenant to enjoy.

                We found ourselves back in the area of our first home and detoured down the street where I’d foolishly invested so much time, energy and money.  I cried when I saw it.  The big pink peony blooms smiling up at the sunshine took my breath away.  Lush vinca had filled in enough to choke out all the weeks and make annual mulching unnecessary (which had been my goal.)  The gardenia bushes, which had started as one-foot high twigs, now formed a tall, thick, fragrant hedge.  But the thing that caught my eye was a sign right smack dab in the middle of the beautiful red, white and blue field of perennials—Yard of the Month.  That sign was more a testimony to the passage of time than to my efforts, and certainly the current homeowners spent a lot of energy and money maintaining it all through the years.  But even though the sign read Yard of the Month, I know what it really meant…Congratulations Jayne Ormerod! You’re a Gardener with Vision!