A Plant Well Loved

September 7, 2012 / roughwighting / 18 Comments

Is it strange to mourn a plant?

Benji had been a mere babe when we brought him to our California home back in the ‘80s, a vibrant lush green Ficus, about 2 feet high and 1 foot wide. Then, for 16 years he savored his spot in the sunny corner of our dining room.

Until suddenly, we needed to move to the other coast, and Benji wasn’t invited. No moving company would guarantee the safety of a now almost 5 foot by 5 foot splendid plant.

“I won’t go without Benji,” I declared.

So we packed him in a wardrobe box for the move, and as we unfurled the plant two weeks later in the sunny spot made just for him in our new, New England home, I heard him sigh, long and happy.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

He breathed in the oxygen and gave it out, growing in his big corner. The piano sat on one end, solid and staid, while Benji stretched and grew on his end, filling up the large ‘Great Room’ as the Yankees call it.

When guests walked into the spacious room with high ceilings, tall windows, a masculine brick fireplace highlighted by built-in bookcases, all they noticed at first was Benji. Not the wood floors or Oriental rug or ivory couches or glass-topped tables.

Just Benji.

For 10 more years Benji thrived, and at 6 foot tall, he owned the room like a king on his throne.

Until it was time for us to move again, and this time, the law dictated that no plant could be transported to the west coast.

No friends or relatives or even strangers would take Benji – he was too big. But the new residents of our New England home agreed to keep him.

I left instructions: water once a week, not too much and not too little. Let him soak in the light. Talk to him. Enjoy him.

Half a year later, I returned to our past, to the house in New England, and to Benji. I peeked into the Great Room, and saw the wood floors and the bookcases and the fireplace, but no Benji.

Ah, there he was, just a ghost of himself, down to 4 feet by 2, wispy, yellow.

Pathetic.

And I cried for our beloved plant,

Who no longer owned the room.

Like a child not well loved, or a pet kept outdoors, or a spouse ignored, Benji gave up. I felt silly, feeling so sad about this dying plant, but really…

Wouldn’t you?

Benji

[Ficus benjamina, commonly known as the Weeping Fig, Benjamin’s Fig, or the Ficus Tree and often sold in stores as just a “Ficus”, is a species of fig tree, native to south and southeast Asia and Australia.]

The Nest, Emptied

August 31, 2012 / roughwighting / 30 Comments

(In honor of my brother and sister-in-law, my colleagues, my friends, whose last child has just ‘flown the coop’)

For so long, I had listened to the clang of the alarm clocks waking up the children, the limped thump of our son walking stiffly to the bathroom, the feminine growls of his older sister as she demanded her time in that same room.

Suddenly, these morning sounds ceased. Daughter was in Florence for her junior year abroad. Son began his first year at a university thousands of miles away, and I was, once again, childless.

The quiet was surprising.

I had forgotten the time, over 20 years ago, when the only sound was of my breathing, my own steps to the refrigerator or radio, my sighs as I thought out loud, the tick tock of the clock. Once the first child arrived, silence was unimagined.

I never missed the lack of noise, though. Beauty was the baby’s laugh, the tottler’s scream of delight, the sick child’s feverish moan, the teenager’s cry of a friend’s abandonment, the whelp of joy when a college invitation arrived.

I loved the excited conversations after school over chocolate chip cookies, and the sleepy sentences exchanged early in the morning in the car on the way to school. Dinnertime was never a quiet affair. As the man-of-the-house expanded on his notion of “charm school” and the merits of not talking with food in your mouth and keeping your elbows off the table, the four of us discussed, loudly at times, the politics of the week, the latest football scores, and why 10^th graders weren’t allowed to go to unsupervised parties.

As the two grew, the conversation matured on the topics of sex, the unpredictability of the weather, and Republicans vs. Democrats. The responses were never boring; the walls were never quiet.

sister and brother, coop flown

But then, a cloud of silence descended upon our household. I could hear myself think again. I heard the wind against the walls, and the old refrigerator’s hum of discontent. The leaves of the eucalyptus tree blew loudly outside my bedroom doors, and the foghorns moaned early every morning. The doves cooed outside the bathroom window, and my footsteps followed my every move.

Silence is not golden, nor is it really possible. The absolute quiet was filled with other sounds, but none were as gratifying as the noise that accompanied the happy home when it was filled with a growing family.

So….

we got a puppy.

FIVE-Minute Wonder

August 24, 2012 / roughwighting / 29 Comments

I only have five minutes to bake.

Now, who can make scrumptious, tasty chocolate chip butterscotch oatmeal bars in five minutes? Not I, but that fact has never stopped me. Because I always try to fit in too many things in too little time. And then I whine, “Why can’t I get everything done?”

Nice, the way I psychoanalyze myself, I decide, as I soften the butter and pour in 1½ cups of white sugar, mix, then add ½ cup of brown sugar. The purple mixer, a sweet Christmas gift from my son and his wife, whirrs along like the hummingbirds outside our window.

Until we moved back here to the temperate climate of the bay area, I’d never heard the soft buzz of the hummingbirds’ wings as they compete for the sugar water in our feeder. Hard to replicate in words or even human sounds. How to describe? Like a hundred bees racing by my ear, only without the buzz. No, that doesn’t do it. It’s a hum as indescribable as the sound of a mixer’s beaters swooshing in the creamy butter/sugar blend.

I watch another hummer whiz past as I crack in one egg, then the other. Of course, I cogitate; my son had ulterior motives for giving me a new beater for Christmas. He loves my cookies. And he’s smart, I’ll hand it to him. He moans with delight and appreciation every time I bring him a new batch of chocolate cookies or, his favorite, my ‘forgotten cookies.’

Shoot! Speaking of forgotten, I am now 2 minutes late for my yoga class. I add another egg and a teaspoon of vanilla. The smell of the extract gives me a sense of serenity usually experienced after an hour of yogic gyrations. Total nirvana. Funny, how one of the synonyms for vanilla is ‘bland” or ‘plain.” Vanilla is one of the finest aromas in the world – up there with honeysuckle or the ocean.

Ocean! Oh no, I promised my brother I’d send him the pictures from our summer seashore vacation. Has it really been a month since then? Where’d the time go? I almost sent those photos two weeks ago, but I got immersed in writing some new chapters of my book, and visiting our Berkeley grandkids, and my ‘day job,’ and our four out-of-town visitors in the past month.

I measure 2 ¼ cups of flour and slowly add it into the bowl, attempting to not sneeze as the white powder tries to escape the impending merger.

Speaking of merging, my daughter calls, interrupting the cookie making, and talks about the latest ultrasound. She and her husband merged again, and a third child is on the way. How the hell did I become a grandmother of five, soon six? Last time I looked, I was tucking our children to bed after reading them the fourth chapter of The Witch, the Lion and the Wardrobe.

Oh damn. I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning again. My wardrobe is suffering for it – will I need to wear the same blouse from three days ago? Horrors.

The mixer moans and I remember that I’m beating the hell out of my concoction. Quickly, I add the oatmeal and the chips. I’ve missed yoga, I’ll have to add a load of clothes to the washing machine now, and the potatoes are bubbling for the casserole tonight. Where was I?

Ah yes, five minutes to get everything done. I glance up at the clock. Well, I only have five minutes now before I need to….The dog hits his head against my arm. “Feed me,” he says, “Now.”

“Henry, it’s too early!” I tell him with a twinge of sympathy. But I glance up at the clock. Twenty minutes past his dinner time. Where oh where did those five minutes go?

WHAT DO YOU GET ACCOMPLISHED IN FIVE MINUTES?

GOOD SUMMER READS

August 17, 2012 / roughwighting / 17 Comments

What’s the difference between a summer read and a winter read? A “beach book” and a “book to snuggle up during a snowstorm”?

None.

A good read is just as good a read while sitting on your comfy chair in front of the fireplace as on your sandy lounge chair in front of the ocean.

But I thought I’d share what books have kept me company during this too-short summer season while I’ve squeezed myself in a steel tube flying from one coast to another; while I’ve been surrounded by boxes of packed kitchenware and towels during a move; when I sat on a rusty ancient beach chair with the Atlantic Ocean waves soothing my sunburned skin; and while resting in bed, lights turned low, muscles going limp after a hard day’s night.

STATE OF WONDER, by Ann Patchett

Every Patchett book delights me in its authenticity, range of characters, and thought-provoking scenes. Despite slapping myself constantly because of (unseen but well-imagined) mysterious enormous insects (you’ll understand by page 100), I loved every inch of this amazing Amazonian book.

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, by Deborah Harkness

I ignored several good reviews of this book because one of the characters is a vampire, and I am tired of vampires invading the bookseller’s list. Enough already. But my daughter (who’s prone to read scientific non-fiction tomes) gave me her copy and suggested this is more than a vampire story. I got sucked in immediately (whoops, couldn’t help myself). As the reviewer for PhiloBiblos remarks, “Pure literary brain candy, but … it’s very well written and chock-full of fascinating bits from Harness’s research.” Now I can’t wait to read the sequel.

THE WEIRD SISTERS, by Eleanor Brown

A friend’s friend’s mother recommended this book so highly that I bought the paperback less than 24 hours later at one of my favorite independent bookstores – the Concord Bookshop in Concord, MA. Three grown-up sisters discover themselves, and each other, when moving back home with their aging parents. Many wonderful Shakespearean references abound (after all, in Shakespeare’s time, to be weird was to be prophetic). Author Brown explains, “The fact that (the sisters) were named after … famous Shakespearean heroines contributes to their feelings of failure. They are never going to be as glamorous and romantic and well-spoken as the women after whom they are named, but their problems are very much their own.”

THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU, by Elizabeth Berg

I’ve never read an Elizabeth Berg book I didn’t like (and she’s written a dozen). Berg delves into a woman’s soul like a woman delves into a deep dish of ice cream: passionately and to the last drop. In this Berg book, longtime friends attend their 40^th high school reunion. Harsh, painful, funny, eye-opening: these words describe the book, as well as the reunion. I think the Seattle Times reviewer got it right: “Maybe Freud didn’t know the answer to what women want, but Elizabeth Berg certainly does.”

A TRICKLE OF LIGHT, by Louise Penny

Several years ago my man and I stumbled upon an amazing independent bookstore in North Conway, NH, called White Birch Books. Even though I live on the other side of the country now, I still read this bookstore’s monthly e-newsletter because the staff has been so good at introducing me to new authors, like Canadian Louise Penny. I began with her first mystery, Still Life, set in a fictitious Canadian village south of Montreal, and I’ve been hooked ever since. A Trick of the Light is Penny’s latest, in which the wise and wonderful Chief Inspector Gamache (a truth-seeker in more ways than one) searches for clues after an art-inspired murder in the deceivingly sweet town of Three Twins. I agree with the Booklist comment: “Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm….”

I could continue with more good reads, but now it’s your turn.

What Summer Read do YOU recommend?

Who Am I? Who Are You?

August 10, 2012August 10, 2012 / roughwighting / 71 Comments

I’m a curly-haired woman who loves fairytale fantasy, long walks along the water, communing silently with babies and animals, and reading for hours in a deep plush chair while sipping Tropical Green tea.

I dislike vapid vain chatter; inconsiderate drivers who turn without blinking; wayward souls who act as if they run the world; grocery carts with broken wheels; men who pinch women’s rears (yes, still!); unanswered e-mails; unplucked eyebrows; arguments; orange vests; and fruit drinks.

My heart soars with the soft, whisper-filled kisses of little ones; a sun salutation on a Hawaiian beach; a spontaneous loud laugh from a coworker; a handful of M&M’s, particularly the green or blue ones; a sudden embrace from my irreplaceable guy.

The sounds I most enjoy: the swish of pens on paper (and the clack of a laptop) during one of my creative writing classes; the pounding surf on the New Jersey seashore; the beat of a Beatles tune; the bark of Henry, the dog, as he sits in front of his cookie jar,; the beginning melody of The Nutcracker Suite ballet; the soft plop of an omelet-filled plate placed in front of me at a sunny San Francisco corner café; the ‘hello Pammy’ call from my effervescent magnetic mom.

Life is worthwhile because of soft classical music on a cold Sunday morning; two-hour conversations with a long-time friend; a tall diffident son who stares deeply into my eyes and says, ‘Love you, Mom’; a 2-year-old grandchild who sits quietly, attentively on my lap while listening to Good Night Moon; a foggy afternoon writing stories about people I’ve never met; a man who runs out to buy my special Earl Gray tea latte, non-fat milk with foam at 6:15 in the morning; a beautiful daughter who wears her heart on every sleeve and her love in her morning glory eyes.