Green Peace

Green Peace   

“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere - in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming.”  (John O'Donohue, Irish author)

 

            Now that spring is well on its way into summer, I once again have the pleasure of tending to the garden beds carefully organized about our property. It has been almost three years since we located to Paris, Ontario. It can seem strange when stopping to take it all in. In slow motion, time passes and we often don’t know it. Sometimes one can see the changes, in glimpses, even if they are merely superficial. I stand here and I entertain it all, and like a Kinetoscope, picture after picture falls into line. One moment follows another, always leading, always moving, up until its end. Change comes in flashes. One must stop to notice rather than merely flipping through all those pages. Gardening and caring for our property has become a simple delight for me. I never would have imagined that at this point in my life communing with nature would become an instinct rather than merely based on impulse. I am a horticulturist whether I care to be or not. It has gone beyond family tradition, although I finally understand the thrill of it all. I have become my mother, in a sense, toiling and reshaping the grounds to my own taste and sense of Feng Shui. Each plant, each creation is a mixed evolution. The product from years of growth without me only added to the ease with which I took over the care. It is overflowing, a bounty of green and red and yellow and white. A stream of birds and squirrels and chipmunks too. The space is alive, and not just in some general sense. The land has tales to tell. It whispers to me and lingers for me. This notion has not always been. It has not always been this way. I held that gardening was an art my parents gave in to, not me. Now I understand what my folks were trying to tell me. Now I attempt to listen, I try to hear what Mother Nature is trying to say to me. Insignificant moments become a touchstone, and I find I have found home. Whether engaged at the bird feeders or sitting under the back tree, this is my space, to which I work and to which I manage. The shape of these things holds much revelation, a joy in the matter. It’s like an otherland made up of grass cuttings and bird crap pooped all over everything. It is a safe refuge even if I helped create it myself.

“I am the mown grass, dying at your feet,

The pale grass, gasping faintly in the sun.

I shall be dead, long, long ere day is done,

That you may say: ‘The air, to-day, was sweet.’

I am the mown grass, dying at your feet.”

(Margaret Gilman Davidson, American poet)

            If there is one thing I still hate about having property, it is cutting the grass. There is almost nothing else that I despise as much. There are reasons for my disdain. As a boy, my main source of income was mowing other people’s lawns. It was not a lifestyle choice. The chore was often divided. Some grass I cut for free and the rest I charged for the service. I hated raking it up almost as much. I used to dread Saturday mornings as the Church grass loomed. I never saw a penny. Saturday afternoon brought more of the same. This time I saw a profit. This type of income was my main source in the procurement of comic books. Every blade of grass, every weed, meant another page, another title to my collection. It was worth it to earn every penny. I gathered quite the stash and this set me on a lifelong love affair. Whether it was the little old ladies who lived down a lane, or my late Aunt Edna, it was little work for that much money but it seemed tailored to my angst about it. I remember cutting so much grass that I thought my name was John Deere until I turned twenty-three years old. As I left my youth, I actually thought I could escape it. It’s always easier said than it is to be done. Responsibility sucks especially if you hate something about it. I have rarely lived where the grass did grow but the places where it did were like thorns in my side. These days, I don’t think about this task. For many years, my partner Ben has done the dirty deed. I don’t have to think about it, focus on it, I don’t have to worry about it at all. Always mowing the grass is one of my favourite things about him. He can even change the bag on his own. At times, the life of a homeowner can seem more punishment than reward. I don’t have to concern myself, at least not with cutting the lawn. It might be a small joy, my exemption, with little of any thing but anything at all. Finally, it has become someone else’s chore.

“I could happily lean on a gate all the livelong day, chatting to passers-by about the wind and the rain. I do a lot of gate-leaning while I am supposed to be gardening; instead of hoeing, I lean on the gate, stare at the vegetable beds and ponder.”

(Tom Hodgkinson, British writer)

             Approximately one month after we relocated to Paris, my neighbour Barbara

set up house on the lot next to ours. I liked her right away. She is a dichotomy, at least how I see her. A little cranky, a little kooky, a little soft and a little hard. I appreciate women who can take care of themselves, whether with a man or without one. Barb seems to have done just fine, in spite of whatever circumstance found her alone once again. Although it took some time for us to warm up to each other, it was not a difficult matter. We worked right away and only needed time to discover more. Things got way better when her daughter Sam moved in. She is like almost every woman I have ever been friends with. Her carefree demeanour hides a softness I’m not sure many people have seen. She is warm and friendly and well travelled. I can get a little jealous of the freedom she still has. It’s not that I wish my life was different, it’s just that I would rather live it in the real Paris, or somewhere else beyond my hand. The pair of them have only added to a lovely out of doors. I look forward to seeing them. I like chatting with them both.  They make the front yard a charming space. I think we have actually become friends. One day, not so long ago, the girls adopted Oscar, a black purebred dachshund. I took to the puppy like he was my own. The time I spend with him is enchanting to say the least. On a regular afternoon, you can find him barking at my front door, craving the chicken liver treats I keep around just for him. He has become, in a true sense, part of the landscape around our home. His bark is enthralling rather than annoying. He is a pretty little thing and he most certainly knows it. His long black coat is soft like silk would be. His appearance is regal if you ask me. He is everything that anyone could want in a dog, at least from a short-legged little rascal like Mister Oscar. I look forward to the brief but lovely moments that we share. I would take him as my own if I could. His presence in my daily life has made me want to get a dog of my own. It has been well over a decade since we had to put Skippy down, a decision we often question out of guilt and remorse. It may seem like it is time again but with two cats, the chance of it happening anytime soon is fleeting at best. I would take Oscar in a heartbeat. Perhaps when one of the cats passes we might entertain the idea but until then, I will live vicariously through my buddy from next door.

“Negative feelings are like stray cats.

The more you feed them, the more they hang around.”

(Sister Joyce Rupp, American author)

            Long before the bird feeders went up and Oscar moved in next door, stray cat strutting was a daily theme in the theatre that has become my backyard. Since the first day we moved here, cat after cat has been stalking critter after critter. This unending parade of feline invaders was a constant distraction. I spent so much time chasing them away, I might as well have been a cat. As the landscape changed and evolved, touches were added to shape the backyard. These shifts in the green space only added greater places for the cats to hide. There were numerous strays and a few domesticated. It seemed that every day some new monster appeared, trying to disrupt my sanctuary. The worst offenders were actually the pets of my then next door neighbour. The two were a nasty pair. I cannot tell you how many burials I have had to endure because of their natural inclinations. The most disgusting issue with the cats from next door was how they disposed of the body. Whether a dozen Junkos out back or the chipmunks in the side yard, one body after another was found headless with the guts sucked out of it. For over a year, “Jack the Catnipper” roamed free about the neighbourhood. I don’t know how many creatures were devoured by the beast but the carcass total was more than two dozen. It was carnage. When we learned that our neighbours were moving to England, my first thought was whether they were taking their cats. I waited with bated breath for the news. As much as I would miss my friends, the idea of not having to kill the furry fuckers was quite appealing. Not that I would have done it but sometimes it helped to think that I could have. The world has changed since the departure. The grounds are overrun with birds and squirrels and chipmunks. Somehow the strays have learned to stay away or at least something has made them. Since the warmer weather, the doves have returned, the chipmunks are back and the world in the garden is safe once again. It is a peaceful place by all accounts. Life is better without all that pussy and I am unanimous in that.  

“In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.“

(Alice Walker, American author)

            When my first partner died, the plot he was buried in sat alone with few neighbours. Twenty-five years later and there is little room left in the area for anyone else. The cemetery has filled in like a conga line. Almost immediately after the burial, a marker was ordered and when it arrived, I began to tend to the garden space around his headstone. Unfamiliar with the art of design, I covered the area with almost any plant I could find. It was overflowing and unorganized. Initially, I even used a trellis, just to the right side of the stone. It was covered from head to toe with Morning Glories. It was all just a little too much. I think, in a sense, my attempts at mandating beauty turned tacky and inferior. I was clearly overcompensating so I let it all go to seed. Eventually, the Lilly of the Valley that I planted in year one strangled out anything that would have grown on its own. I had to find a way to keep it all in. I took flagstone from my “in-laws’” property and created a rock border around the marker. It has rounded the edge ever since. When we moved to Paris, I decided the garden beds needed a border, badly. The myrtle that is so abundant throughout the yards was already growing over and into the grass on the front lawn. I had to confine it somehow. I decided, I was inspired, to create the same look that I had at the cemetery in Stratford. If the edging could keep Lilly of the Valley at bay then some measly groundcover would not be a challenge whatsoever. Although the flagstone was no longer available from Ben’s parents, I drove around for a few weeks comparing prices on the amount I needed. Soon enough, it piled up on the front deck like dominos. I started slowly, rounded the path and kept on going up to the back entrance. I only took a few weeks and the stage was set. I believe that the combination of the flagstone border, a pond of myrtle, grasses, and more grasses, plus black-eyed Susans, wild daisies and several fully developed types of lilies, make what now stands in the front garden look more like a swamp than anything else. It is organized chaos, overgrown exactly as I planned it to be. The large heron I place as the centrepiece creates the illusion of water, and riverbank and fowl. I guess there is a magic to working with stone and rock. You can’t really mould them to anything but the shape they came as. You have to work with their limitations. If you discern, like putting together a puzzle, the unshapeable becomes the very thing that ends up holding it all together. Every time I look out over the little piece of land that we own, I see old beauty and new beauty and beauty that is to come. It has become an otherland at times, but more refuge than escape. Even the stones that surround our parameter are silent whispers of another place and another time and of the man I used to be.

“When I go into the garden, I forget everything. It’s uncomplicated in my world of gardening. It’s trial and error, really. If something doesn’t work, it comes out, and you start all over again.” (Emilia Fox, English actress)

            I used to dream of faraway places where the space was quiet and still and gave me much needed rest. I would imagine warm beaches or mountain trails, always thinking they would settle me and lead me to a peaceful place. Most people seem to want the same thing, somewhere to go that you can call your own. They want sanctuary from the stress of the world. It’s too bad we always dream of someplace else. If only where we are would mean as much. I am a fortunate man. I don’t need to head to Maui or Rome to find it. I can go out the front door or walk out the back, that’s about all I have to do these days. Even in the roughest stretch, it is there for me to run away to. It has literally become an otherland. I have come to need it, to find what my parents found during all the years of their toiling. After all, we are all entitled to a little green peace.

“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odourless but all together perfume the air.”

(Georges Bernanos, French author)

Photo

Summer 2016

Paris, Ontario