Just a thumb…(Ruby)

I am thoroughly enjoying the fall in Wisconsin this year; September was a spectacularly pleasant month…virtually no rain, cloudless skies, a crispness to the air without any hint of a chill. Lovely. And now it has changed overnight, as it so often does and it’s really cold for October, temperatures more like what we typically see in November…and yet I love this just as much because I am really a human with an indoor cat mentality, looking for a window seat that is drenched in blistering sunlight, hot winter-white sun, warming me during the day, not unlike the fireplace-fires that warm me at night.

I do cozy very well.

I love the sense that I really am not “pressured” to go outside, as the days get shorter and cooler until it’s bone-cracking cold and black-as-night around 4:30pm. And not that anyone literally pressures me…but I will admit that in the spring, when the earliest shoots and buds are peeking up through the still shivering soil, I get a sense of urgency that simply makes my skin crawl and it has something to do with all the guilt I have for not yet being the gardener I would like to be. For now, this guilt has me saying things like “I LOATHE gardens….I don’t even want grass”. I find myself fantasizing about my perfect outdoor space which is inspired by a charming courtyard/patio that my sister had at a first-floor-of-a-house-apartment, years ago in Philadelphia; she had painted the concrete (no grass!!) PINK, there was a tall fence that made it entirely private, she had made countless wind-chimes out of old keys and found objects and took good care of pots of flowers. The gentle tinkling of the chimes and lighting and pink “floor” were delightful, the perfect space to enjoy a coffee and get the giggles over some crazy story. The more I coveted that pink patio fantasy yard, the more I resented grass…although I imagine my resentment is more about my defensive reaction to a feeling of ineptitude…and embarrassment for being the neighborhood perpetrator of the un-yard, the anti-landscape…

I’ve thought about the notion of a GREEN-THUMB, knowing that mine is just a plain ol’ thumb, no verdant magic in these hands. But this doesn’t bode well because, afterall, I am an “artist” of sorts; I know what I want to look at, I love beautiful things, I pull my car over to take pictures of other people’s gardens, I draw, I paint, I design, I love the whole world of “LAYOUT”, I am obsessed with the tweaking and refining of décor within rooms to achieve the optimal coziness and lovliness, I am clean, I take care of things. So why do I subject myself to being only an observer of appealing landscapes beyond my front door, merely appreciating what the rest of the world is doing with their yards, but never getting my own hands soiled?

It’s NOT because I am a clean freak, although I suspect it’s because I am a control freak. It occurred to me one day as I thought about how I love to gussy up a living room with art on the walls, fresh paint, the perfect rug, the right throw pillow…that the one difference between what goes on inside my house versus outside is that my pillows and ottomans do not grow. I choose them for the color and the size that they are and will always be. I don’t stress over not remembering to feed my couch…with the threat of it wilting and everyone knowing I just didn’t know how to care for it. I don’t worry about my coffee table becoming disproportionately large and blocking the couch from my view. I don’t worry that the artwork on my walls will suddenly fade to entirely new hues that I hadn’t anticipated and then crack leaving shattered remnants on the floor beneath where it once hung.

And so I conclude that the growing, the changing, the metamorphosis that is the essence of a garden…and then the dying and the transitions that keep any garden current at any time…is too much for me to handle. I love the predictability of how everything looks around me INSIDE my house (give or take the daily abominations called stray junk, dust, too many shoes by the front door, sticky spots on counters, etc.). Clearly, if I got myself a private horticulturalist mentor (think personal trainer at the gym…same thing, but in the dirt), I might stand a chance of actually comprehending what to grow when and where and for how long and might even find that there are certain garden styles that could be tailored to my needs for low maintenance perfection.

But until that time, I try to forgive and forget the scruffy, unloved look of my un-yard, try to appreciate it for the space it provides for now - for my kids and dog - whether or not we make the cover of House Beautiful in this lifetime. And meanwhile, I tell myself that I have the perfect excuse not to do a damn thing about it - until possibly next spring - as the air starts to whip me in the face with the reality of another mid-western winter around the corner. Oh well. Guess I better hunker down by the fire…with my wine and my pooch, where I am safe…and sound(ish)…

P.S. the super ugly yard picture is not MY yard…just had to clear that up (although it might as well be)…nor is the sweet pink-ish patio my sisters, but you get the idea…

Ruby