It is a dazzling fall day. I am walking in the frost-dusted
grass and thinking about leaving, among other things, the tiny Cornelian cherry
dogwood that is only twelve inches tall but already has flowerbuds, and the
stewartia and its orangey-red fall foliage. The Kwanzan cherry we picked to take
the place of the hollow old apple tree is beginning, at last, to spread its
limbs and create the privacy I envisioned when I planted it three years ago. Its
leaves are yellow against the brilliant blue sky. Six months before selecting the
cherry, on the first anniversary of our moving to Cherokee Street, Bob and I
together dug a hole and set the Donald Wyman lilac in place. We took turns
watering it. The following summer my son laid down an eight-sided flagstone
patio.
I am thinking about leaving the winterberry hollies that
have copious numbers of fat red berries for the first time this year, and the
Persian parrotia that I covered with netting last week to save it from browsing
deer. And the yellow maple leaves that lay inches thick on the ground. So
precious has this house, and this garden, been that leaving will be torturous,
but staying perhaps more so.
I am thinking about leaving this place where I was loved
beyond reason, where one summer night Bob and I sat out on the patio my son
built and watched a hundred-thousand fireflies blinking above the grass and shimmering
in the trees. Where he placed rocks in my beds and borders, big heavy rocks in
the first and second years of our sharing this space, and then, as he became
weaker, progressively smaller and lighter ones. When he could no longer physically
move them into the particular spots he deemed perfect, he directed his son, who
would have done anything to keep his father happy for one more day, to place
this one here, next to the stewartia, and that one there, by the Solomon’s
seal.
I am not feeling the prompt to dig a new bed, as is my fall tendency.
Last week I cut down and chopped up the dying castor bean without enthusiasm, solemnly
skirting the spots where his ashes lie. But despite my sorrow I cannot help but
feel a quiet thrill at the dozens of foxglove clumps, vigorous in the cold
November air. They will keep me here, at least until July.
The oat grass has grown tall, concealing the fallen Sungold
tomatoes I did not have the heart to harvest, or eat, when they were sweet and firm.
Next spring the ground will be moist and diggable, and the life-and-death cycle
will begin again. Whether I stay or whether I go, I will be compelled to plant
tomatoes. This I know.
I have rearranged my life, my clothes, the furniture in my
house. I have given away shoes and coats and tables. Shuffling pieces of my
past has brought relief.
And yet, I cannot bring myself to shift a single rock.
