Wonderland

The way I now think about this is that it’s as if someone handed me the keys to a fairyland: a huge space where I can stretch out, a lovely yard, a deck to breakfast on, even a car, but with the one little catch that this fairyland is located in Ypsilanti, MI. Or maybe there was a sail that caught a little puff of wind which kept it open enough that it caught another little puff of wind, and then finally the sail filled with wind and blew me all the way across the country. (My sister alone put quite a few puffs of wind in that sail.)

And of course I think of Brad Pitt. I once read that he refuses to go backward no matter what. For instance, if he leaves the house and realizes he doesn’t have his keys, he doesn’t return to get them (supposedly). (I’ll bet he goes back if he discovers he forgot his phone.) Having literally and massively expanded my space and that of Duckworth and Marvin, following in the footsteps of Brad Pitt, I shall not re-contract.

Therefore I may as well and shall cause my belongings to join me in Michigan. I have contacted a nationwide moving company to begin the process of getting quotes.

Yesterday, with my sister’s help, I dropped the car off at AAMCO for its yearly check, which costs way, way less than taking it to the dealership. After retrieving the car, I went to Walgreens, Sherwin-Williams, the bank, two grocery stores and two hardware stores, and then I washed and chopped vegetables for the week and had dinner.

It was a beautiful day today. My sister came over to help in the yard. I suited up in my overalls; I love having all these pockets. These haven’t seemed as comfortable as the ones I wore in a certain longish era of my childhood, but they aren’t very well broken in yet. I also realized part of the reason something did not seem quite right was that the crotch of them was several inches south of the crotch of me. They felt better once I hiked them up. Unfortunately, I had them hemmed prior to this realization, so they are definitely high waters, but that beats having them puddle around my ankles. I might end up wearing overalls all the time once again. I might even jauntily let the straps dangle around my shins from time to time.

I decided I would like to plant the new plants myself, if possible: two hydrangea trees, two different azaleas, four ilexes, and two forsythias. If the garden guy planted them and they failed, I might always wonder if things would have gone better if I’d planted them myself, and of course if they do well, it will be very satisfying to know I planted them. I allocated four hours this afternoon, with the hope that maybe I’d get them all planted. 

My sister and I headed out to the south yard. My plant-loving next-door neighbor and his teenaged son were hacking away at some plants in their yard, trying to let in more light before winter comes, he said. (Winter! What a thrilling idea!) We all greeted each other. My neighbor said he loves the color I painted the deck; he said it’s his favorite color. Later I saw some substantial branches lying on the ground definitely on my property; they could well have come from a plant of mine, but whatever. There were moments when I was hacking away in that same area weeks ago and suddenly realized my nose was three inches from the side of his house. I don’t really care what happens in that area.

Today I began by clearing various things out of the way where I’d like to plant one of the hydrangeas, in a flower bed of our mother’s. My sister kindly cut yard waste into shorter pieces and put it in lawn and leaf bags. I told her to let me know if she’d like to swap tasks; I didn’t want to hog all the fun, but she said she is comfortable in an assistant role. I dug, and dug, and dug … surely this hole must be deep enough? My sister said she thought another six inches should do it. 

In sum, not one single plant got planted today, but that’s partly because of my meandering yardwork style. All kinds of other stuff got done: I watered all the unplanted plants, dug up thistles, pulled up a lot of some other big weeds that are extremely easy to pull out, cut off things that seemed too low overhead or too close to the eyes, pulled up English ivy, pruned the lilac a bit to make way for my forsythias, made a huge pile of buckthorn, clipped a lot of some kind of berry whose stems are covered with thorns, and took out a second compost area under which was some really fantastic soil. (The first compost area is right off the deck. That is where I put my compost.)

Where I would like to plant the other hydrangea, in a wood-enclosed bed in the back yard, there are some stumps I can’t get out. I had agreed with the stump guy to wait to tackle stumps until the silver maple is taken out, but I really need these smaller ones out of the way, so I texted him to see if he could do an earlier first pass, and he said he’ll be over tomorrow.

At one point, I clipped some of that thorny berry and suddenly found I was looking at about 200 flying insects, some smaller and some larger, presumably the adults. They were clearly reacting to having their nest disturbed but they were not remotely aggressive or in any way frightening. I didn’t recognize them. They kind of looked like flying ants.

My sister told me that there are some invasive species, such as buckthorn, that you can’t put out with the yard waste. This I had no idea of. You can put them in your regular trash, it appears; we agreed it would be good to label the bags inside the trash bin, just in case. I ended up with a massive pile of buckthorn. If I have to put it in the trash, it will be weeks before it’s all gone, but maybe I can ask the yard guy to take it away.

For several days, I had conversations with Digby and her mother in my mind wherein I said a lot of insulting things. Yesterday I finally reached the point where I could just note this as “imaginary.” I also felt sorry that I had lost my temper if only in the more intrapersonal sense; there should have been some way I could have self-supervised to avoid that. I finally had the mental wherewithal to begin to remind myself that Digby and her mother are not bad people, no more than I am. All three of us have our lovely qualities and our moments that don’t go so well. Not by this morning, but by this afternoon, I could picture myself apologizing for my part in that interaction.

I avoided the area between our yards for most of the day, but by late afternoon, after my sister had departed, I edged over there and did a little weeding and pruning. I could hear that someone was in the yard, but kept my gaze studiously averted. However, I could feel that there didn’t seem to be a bad vibe emanating from that direction. (If nothing else, 44 years in Northern California gives you the ability to accurately assess a vibe.) Finally, someone strode toward me: Digby. I called a greeting to her, and I said, “I’m sorry for all the tension the other day.” She came up to me smiling warmly, holding something in her hand. (No, not a gun.)

I added, “I’m sorry I got off on such a bad foot with your mother. I look forward to getting to know her in other contexts.”

Digby said, “She’ll probably be by from time to time. We went apple picking today.” Here she reached out to hand me the container she was carrying: Homemade applesauce, still warm! So sweet of them!

We discussed my yard a little. I pointed out my hydrangea tree; she admired it. I said that something or other in my yard doesn’t look very good and she encouragingly said, “Now!”, meaning that it will look good later. I said her yard looks wonderful; she said she cannot take any credit for that. Indeed, the prior owner took really excellent care of that yard. It is a showplace. Yay! Neighborly relations restored. I’m very glad.

My plant-loving next-door neighbor and his son had knocked off work a while earlier; at some point they started up again, with the sounds so audible that I did actually feel a little uneasy and suddenly had a better understanding of how he felt the day I pruned the forsythias that separate our yards: Are their faces about to appear in my yard? 

Today the yard looked so beautiful to me, whereas the same yard seemed depressingly overgrown a week ago. I guess it’s like body image, where one day it’s, “Yeah, looking good!” and then two days later I look decrepit and pocked.

After I chose the title of this post, I remembered that that word is literally on many a Michigan license plate: Water winter wonderland.