Just do something! What writing and gardening have in common.

Recently, as I finished a final round of edits on CROOKED LITTLE LIES, my novel that is coming out shortly from Amazon/Lake Union, I was also putting in the major elements of the garden that has been in the planning stages since I moved out to the country a year ago, and I was thinking how similar the two occupations are. Either undertaking begins with a thought, an idea, an image, some whisper of something that sends you out the door or to the desk. Notes are jotted down. Sketches are made. Plans are put into action. Sometimes you hit a wall. Out here in the country, in particular, where there aren’t the usual parameters, like sidewalks, driveways and privacy fences, to define the area, I’m often stumped. How far should I take the limestone dry-stack wall? What, exactly, should the cedar rail fence with its adorable peaked arbor encompass? I go outside and stare, trying to decide. It’s very like sitting at my computer, wondering which way to take a plot or a character in a story.

Gardener’s block and writer’s block have a lot in common. There’s a certain despair, rising levels of frustration and anxiety. I can almost see this little person in my head pacing the floor, wringing her hands. Until a voice speaks up, yelling: Just do something! In the case of writing it means type a sentence even if it’s gibberish. In the garden, it might mean getting a few rocks, adding them to the existing wall and stepping back to evaluate. Or it might mean digging up that entire clump of daylilies, because they’re in the wrong place. It can get complicated with crafting a story, too, requiring of anything from ripping out an entire plotline to totally changing an ending.

Built from cedar harvested on the property, this little arbor
 in January looks pretty bare, but it has lots of potential.

And the two processes also share similarities in the method by which either one is created. Both start with good bones. In the garden, I begin with hardscaping, a wall, a length of fence, statuary or a pergola—some focal point to build around. In story writing I begin if not with a fully fleshed synopsis then at least I will have the bones of an idea. And in either case, for me, anyway, the bones need to be strong and compelling. I need an ocean’s worth of enthusiasm, because either way, I‘m going to be lost in this muddy, unknown territory for awhile. Either project is going to take time to complete, and there are bound to be setbacks, small heartbreaks and jabs of disappointment, never mind the odd bouts of confusion, the times I grope around wondering wondering where I am. It’s as easy to garden your way into a corner, as it is to write your way into one. 

But there is one difference between the two occupations, one that I discovered only now, as I sent CROOKED LITTLE LIES back to my lovely editor for the last time. I went outside to the garden, my go-to place. It’s always been my sanctuary even as it can be the greatest source for distress, and as I

This is Sophia, my beautiful garden muse,
found this spring. 

was looking over results of my early spring efforts so far, and feeling impatient that the perennials are so small, that the shrubs haven’t filled in, that the trees will need their canvas-strap supports for another six months and I hate how it looks, the word STOP! popped into my head. A voice continued: You’re missing it, the beauty now. The beauty of beginning, of watching something grow. It often happens that I’ll hear this voice, my higher self, the one that knows how to find the joy in life. And I’m so grateful for it, to have cultivated it so it’s usually louder than the voice of my frustration. It’s this voice, what I’ve come to think of as the voice of my joy, that sees me through the hard places in life. It’s there whenever I care to listen no matter what I’m doing, and definitely whether I’m writing or gardening. But back to the difference between them, standing in the garden that day, while I did slow down and let my vision fill with the beauty that is already in evidence, that little voice spoke up again to whisper that while the book was finished, the garden, like so many other gardens I’ve begun in my lifetime, never will be done. I will always walk outside and see something I want to do there. In fact, I will quite possibly die thinking of the phlox or some other clump of whatever flowers, how tomorrow I will move them as they have overgrown their place in the border. And perhaps that is a garden’s value, that one is never finished conspiring with nature over its creation. It comforted me, even elated me, having that thought. And I guess it does share a similarity with writing after all. I can’t see how I’ll ever be finished with conjuring plots, either, for the characters that continue to get up and walk around in my head.

Chopping cedar is like Thanksgiving

I've been chopping cedar several days a week for a few weeks now. This is the first pile I amassed. It was as long as maybe two pick up trucks parked end to end and at least as tall as I am. It was such a lovely pile ... so tightly woven that David said it just made him want to light a match. He's a funny guy. Anyway I was so proud of that pile, the way it was coming along. I kept thinking how photogenic it was, that I really needed to snap a picture. Then one evening, as the sun was setting, I happened to look down the hill and there it was, one end of that beautiful pile up in flames! I flew out the door, phone in hand, shouting, "Wait, wait!" I got this shot. Then I worried aloud how smart it was starting such a big burn at dusk. David laughed. He said the pile was so dry and tight it would be ash in less than twenty minutes. He was right. I couldn't believe it. All that chopping and cutting into wagon-loadable pieces, hauling it down the hill, dragging the wagon back up (a great tush workout by the way) ... all that work, gone in twenty minutes.

"It's like Thanksgiving dinner," I said to no one in particular. "All that cooking for days and it's gone in twenty minutes, too."

Sigh....

At least there aren't dishes to wash.

The Story House, Chapter 4 - The Labor of Love

This thicket is to the right of where I cut. Really doesn't show the
awful amount of deadfall. Can you believe there are oak trees
in there?

The window over the sink in my garden shed overlooks a sinewy path leading to a little meadow, but you can’t see the meadow for the cedar that chokes the view. I’ve watched the foxes and the cottontails come tiptoeing through it, and I’ve seen the chaparral rushing headlong under the lowest branches in that hilarious way they have. No question the cedar is a great cover for wildlife. But as a thicket, it was so untidy, a stickery gray deadfall below giving way to needled feathery tufts of blue green above. And there was so much of it that none of the individual trees had much of a chance to thrive. Every day when I looked out on that thicket, it called out to be thinned.

Me and Mr. Poulan. I learned the hard way it's best to gear up
in jeans, long sleeved shirt and boots

First I tried with a Sawzall, but all it did was chew the cedar bark and vibrate in my hand until my teeth, even my bones, rattled. So I went to the box store and bought a small, Poulan electric chain saw. No one was very happy when I showed it off. Even I had some doubts about using it. About that time there was a story about a guy who somehow got a chainsaw stuck in his neck, I think. He lived, miraculously. Still, it gave me pause. But I read the manual for my Poulan. David added oil and made sure the chain was tight. He said what he always does, that he couldn’t do anything with me when I got one of my ideas. I tried a few test cuts on some branches. I was eager to start the clearing on my home site, which is opposite the messy meadow. I’m not going to lie, chainsaws make me nervous, but this one was light in my hands, and it handled well. Still, I didn't persist. Instead I stored it and waited for a day when David could do the cutting, and I could help by dragging off the limbs and smaller trees to the burn pile. A few weeks later, Chris cleared the rest of the home site and opened it up to the spectacular view. But every day, I was confronted with that cedar snarl on the other side of my property, outside my window. It weighed on me. There were oaks in there, a vine of some sort, who knew what all treasures could be uncovered? But it was no one’s priority other than mine. So a few days ago, I got out the chainsaw and went to work. I’d bought a cart, too, after researching what was the better means of conveyance for the jobs I have around here, not only hauling felled limbs and trees to the burn pile, but also transferring the rocks that were thrown up by the construction on the garden shed. Turns out that for me, a garden cart, the Gorilla cart to be exact, was a better option than a wheelbarrow.

At first, sawing down the trees was daunting, even maddening. I didn’t think I could do it. It wasn’t until I went out the second time, when I got the hang of it, that I stopped at one point and thought how much—not fun—I wasn’t having fun, exactly. In 90 º heat, the work was and is horrible, hot, filthy, sweaty, backbreaking and bloody. But it was so satisfying, as the trees were limbed or felled, to see the sun dapple the ground, to think how the ones left standing would have more water, more nutrients. To see the clumps of wildflowers and that pretty, big-leafed vine revealed, not to mention the oaks. Thirteen of them will be unearthed by my effort when I'm finished with this particular scruffy patch! I have a lot of wildflower seed saved up, poppies my sister gave me, milkweed for the Monarchs, delphinium, and bluebonnets, of course. Now that everything is breathing better, I’m going to sprinkle the seed along the path that uncurls through the little woods.

The Gorilla cart. Don't know how many trips we made up and
down the hill to the burn pile. It's a great workout!

It may be woo-woo, but I’ve always thought as a gardener that working the land is the way you get to know it. It always involves a lot of muscle, but if a year ago anyone had said I’d be felling trees nearly as thick as I am I’d have laughed. I’d have thought it was man’s work. But here’s something else about this experience that just feeds my joy: the way it spurs me to try, to go beyond what I consider my limitations, mental, emotional and physical. It’s like raising my children. They challenged me; they led me beyond places where I thought I could go. I learned as much if not more from them than they learned from me. This land is like that; it’s teaching me, nurturing me, toughening me even as I work to restore its native life and beauty. The work is basic, simple and gratifying in a way that gives at least as much energy as it takes. That must be what is meant by the phrase, a labor of love, which would seem to apply to both children and gardens.

A memoir I read recently, THE DIRTY LIFE by Kristin Kimball, really resonated. In it she talks of her own transformation, how the land and farming involved her heart and soul.  

As for my chainsaw, I love that tool, and the cart, for all they ways they help me get the work done. I am getting teased around here, though. Chris and David call me Babe the Blue Ox. That is when they aren’t calling me Big Mama or Warden.

There’s a guy around here, a local fella, who when asked will tell you he’s just an ol' cedar chopper from Smithwick. Yep, I’d say that about sums it up....      

Chairs: They aren’t just for sitting....

When I went to my sister’s in Fort Worth recently, she twisted my arm and made me go with her to Calloway’s, a big garden nursery near her neighborhood. Having just moved to the Hill Country, I’m not in the market for plants yet. My front yard still has a pile of building material in it and lots of rock left over that was unearthed during construction. There are drainage issues that have to be resolved and retaining walls and a pergola that have to be built before I can even think about getting down to the fun part—hauling in dirt and settling in plants.

The undone rope seat shows the red color

After stapling the screen I added sphagnum, but ended up
taking it out, adding dirt first, then an edging of sphagnum 

But there I was at  Calloway’s, on a beautiful warm day with my sister, also a gardening addict, confronted by tables and rows of gorgeous green, flowering beauty. I didn’t intend to buy a thing. I told myself I was already tending enough that I had brought from my old house, trying to keep it alive until it could be permanently replanted. But in spite of all my self-lecturing, I left that nursery with a whole wagon load of stuff. I moaned to my sister about it. Where did I think I would plant any of it? She tried to soothe me with some excuse. I said no, I’m sick. That’s all! Hopelessly addicted to playing in the dirt! (She knows. We’re exactly alike!) Most of what I bought was tiny ... miniature cyclamen, a small kalanchoe, a little pink and green-leafed ground cover. Delicate angel vine.

So, yesterday, I got this idea. I dragged out of my shipping container this small chair I found some weeks ago while junkin’ in Georgetown, paying less for it than I would a good-size clay pot. It was a chippy, bright, fire engine red with a woven rope seat. My look but not my color, so I undid the rope seat and spray-painted the chair green. Then, using my staple gun, I tacked a piece of screen to the seat opening, pouching it to hold enough dirt to plant in. After settling in the plants, I added a rustic arbor, a birdhouse and a little birdbath and voila! If I can’t have the people-size landscape I see in my mind’s eye, I can create it in miniature.

Now, if only I can figure out what to do with the four tiny, adorable ferns and two equally fetching mini, double-flowered African violets I bought....