Finally. I got my topsoil. Finally. A decent enough temperature. Finally. No rain!
So yesterday I started working in my garden. Shoveled topsoil in my two boxes. One for salads and veggies, one for herbs. (my friend Roberto told me to pronounce "erbs" not "herbs".) What's the matter with those people who don't want to pronounce the H's? I guess Americans would have a hard time learning to speak Arabic properly, since H's are the staple diet of that language.
So I planted a few salads. As I was shoveling topsoil from the top of the dike to the wheelbarrow, and then to the boxes, I got aware of a smell, something like the smell of an exotic flower. I still can't tell what it was, and it was still present today as I was doing some cleanup in the garden. It kind of transported me in Macondo, the town in the middle of the swamps in "One hundred years of solitude". It almost smelled like Monoi oil. Maybe it was a combination of the topsoil, the wild flowers blooming at the back of the garden by the beach, and the herb garden. What an exhilarating feeling it was! Some see gardening as exercise. Others view it as another way to arrange their environment. As far as I'm concerned, I like my garden to look cute, and as natural as possible. The least human intervention possible. Today for instance I was wondering whether I should keep the back of the garden sandy, its natural look, which implies a daily fight with the knotweeds, or do what I did last year, cover it with cedar bark, which was of considerable help in controlling that weed, besides the nice woodsy smell it provides all the season.
I do agree though that gardening is a healthy exercise, for the body as well as for the mind. Once there, like when I paint, I forget EVERYTHING, including the worst human invention: time. I forget about time. I forget that I have to cook dinner. I forget my husband, my daughter, and my own self- the latter is the probably the healthiest for me- I have internal monologues about where is best to place that plant. So I put it there, then step back, look at it, try another place, do the same, till I find something I like. Actually sometimes I speak ou loud to myself, and I'm not ashamed of it. Very healthy. Try it. Not only for gardening.
Sometimes I look up at that cottontree where the bald eagle is calling. Today he was alone, his-or her? partner probably away fishing. I looked at the eagle, and tried to communicate with it: "I know you're watching me, that's fine, I like your company", that's what I told him.
However my gardening is more than physical exercise, and it is everything but trying to domesticate nature. Rather, it is trying to learn from nature. It is taking what she offers, giving whatever I can to help, - yes, how presomptuous, huh?- trying not to disrupt anything. It is taking -just what I need, no more,- and hoping she'll allow me to continue to feed myself. It is giving, my respect, my care, my love, my gratitude. It is also a feast of the senses, something that would be as a good as a good, hearty, earthy French meal, amourously cooked, accompanied with the right wine, as good as making love, as good and refreshing as an early morning swim, as good as meditation, and therefore a spiritual practice above all. I don't garden only to get veggies, I garden to commune with nature. Oh, the healthy effort of shoveling the topsoil, pushing the wheelbarrow, -that thing is darn heavy, and I'm so tiny- :)
Oh,the tender dialogue when I put that fresh soil in my boxes, how the rosemary, the lemon balm- yes, what a balmy smell it has- how the lemon balm, the chives, the parsley, the Italian oregano, the thyme, liked that fresh soil, I could almost hear them sighing with satisfaction. And the bounty of smells they gave me in return!
My garden is located between the dike and the river, so it is rectangular, stretching from the back of our workshop to the beach. It is part of the space we're renting on shore. I started it up when I arrived here and it helped me a lot at a time when I didn't have many connections here and in the first few months when I didn't have a job. The only disruption I caused there was to reclaim the space from the knotweeds, a long battle that is never totally won.
Another factor that every gardener experiences I guess is the pleasure of anticipation. It's like love, it may be even better before. All the months you spend preparing your yard for the season, anticipating the pleasure you're gonna have having your dinners outside by candle light, - and the mosquitoes- another long battle- are almost as good as, if not better, than the actual summer season, let's face it, so short anyway, you give two parties and hop! Gone,!It's fall! Welcome to the pacific Northwest.
A few years ago, I was having another wonderful life, though in a different way, in Paris, but I felt I had expored it all, and I heard the call of the Skagit river. No, yes, this sounds like an old hippy's statement, but it's true. In my trendy-artsy rue Oberkampf, in Paris, at this late hour -10pm- which would be early there, all I heard was motorbikes, music, drunk people, and here, just the river-once more lately just below flood stage, bubbling and gurgling, and the frogs. I then felt sort of out of place in my own country, and now, here, I'm where I knew I was bound and meant to be: my new home. Two key elements contributed to this: the garden and the cafe.
So yesterday I started working in my garden. Shoveled topsoil in my two boxes. One for salads and veggies, one for herbs. (my friend Roberto told me to pronounce "erbs" not "herbs".) What's the matter with those people who don't want to pronounce the H's? I guess Americans would have a hard time learning to speak Arabic properly, since H's are the staple diet of that language.
So I planted a few salads. As I was shoveling topsoil from the top of the dike to the wheelbarrow, and then to the boxes, I got aware of a smell, something like the smell of an exotic flower. I still can't tell what it was, and it was still present today as I was doing some cleanup in the garden. It kind of transported me in Macondo, the town in the middle of the swamps in "One hundred years of solitude". It almost smelled like Monoi oil. Maybe it was a combination of the topsoil, the wild flowers blooming at the back of the garden by the beach, and the herb garden. What an exhilarating feeling it was! Some see gardening as exercise. Others view it as another way to arrange their environment. As far as I'm concerned, I like my garden to look cute, and as natural as possible. The least human intervention possible. Today for instance I was wondering whether I should keep the back of the garden sandy, its natural look, which implies a daily fight with the knotweeds, or do what I did last year, cover it with cedar bark, which was of considerable help in controlling that weed, besides the nice woodsy smell it provides all the season.
I do agree though that gardening is a healthy exercise, for the body as well as for the mind. Once there, like when I paint, I forget EVERYTHING, including the worst human invention: time. I forget about time. I forget that I have to cook dinner. I forget my husband, my daughter, and my own self- the latter is the probably the healthiest for me- I have internal monologues about where is best to place that plant. So I put it there, then step back, look at it, try another place, do the same, till I find something I like. Actually sometimes I speak ou loud to myself, and I'm not ashamed of it. Very healthy. Try it. Not only for gardening.
Sometimes I look up at that cottontree where the bald eagle is calling. Today he was alone, his-or her? partner probably away fishing. I looked at the eagle, and tried to communicate with it: "I know you're watching me, that's fine, I like your company", that's what I told him.
However my gardening is more than physical exercise, and it is everything but trying to domesticate nature. Rather, it is trying to learn from nature. It is taking what she offers, giving whatever I can to help, - yes, how presomptuous, huh?- trying not to disrupt anything. It is taking -just what I need, no more,- and hoping she'll allow me to continue to feed myself. It is giving, my respect, my care, my love, my gratitude. It is also a feast of the senses, something that would be as a good as a good, hearty, earthy French meal, amourously cooked, accompanied with the right wine, as good as making love, as good and refreshing as an early morning swim, as good as meditation, and therefore a spiritual practice above all. I don't garden only to get veggies, I garden to commune with nature. Oh, the healthy effort of shoveling the topsoil, pushing the wheelbarrow, -that thing is darn heavy, and I'm so tiny- :)
Oh,the tender dialogue when I put that fresh soil in my boxes, how the rosemary, the lemon balm- yes, what a balmy smell it has- how the lemon balm, the chives, the parsley, the Italian oregano, the thyme, liked that fresh soil, I could almost hear them sighing with satisfaction. And the bounty of smells they gave me in return!
My garden is located between the dike and the river, so it is rectangular, stretching from the back of our workshop to the beach. It is part of the space we're renting on shore. I started it up when I arrived here and it helped me a lot at a time when I didn't have many connections here and in the first few months when I didn't have a job. The only disruption I caused there was to reclaim the space from the knotweeds, a long battle that is never totally won.
Another factor that every gardener experiences I guess is the pleasure of anticipation. It's like love, it may be even better before. All the months you spend preparing your yard for the season, anticipating the pleasure you're gonna have having your dinners outside by candle light, - and the mosquitoes- another long battle- are almost as good as, if not better, than the actual summer season, let's face it, so short anyway, you give two parties and hop! Gone,!It's fall! Welcome to the pacific Northwest.
A few years ago, I was having another wonderful life, though in a different way, in Paris, but I felt I had expored it all, and I heard the call of the Skagit river. No, yes, this sounds like an old hippy's statement, but it's true. In my trendy-artsy rue Oberkampf, in Paris, at this late hour -10pm- which would be early there, all I heard was motorbikes, music, drunk people, and here, just the river-once more lately just below flood stage, bubbling and gurgling, and the frogs. I then felt sort of out of place in my own country, and now, here, I'm where I knew I was bound and meant to be: my new home. Two key elements contributed to this: the garden and the cafe.
1 comment:
Very nice, Annabelle. Gave me a pang in my heart, a surge, a bit of envy, hope and glee.
In trying to rejoin society after years of wastage, a garden helped me to plan into the future. I grew 11 varieties of tomatoes and it was a labor of love, love of the self through the produce of the soil. RRRRRRRRRRR
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