Go figgy go...

Stretch bamboo stretch...

Though I got me some garden last year, largely with the help of my friend, Rob, this year I've decided to shed as much of my hesitation and doubt as possible and plunge recklessly into it. I've spent hours in the dirt lining our gravel walkways and building tiny walls with bits of kung-fu-cracked brick. I've planted and watered and weeded. I've gone to the store for groceries and returned with my basket full of fescue and poppies.

At first, I saw the task of laying the bricks as a nuisance, once I was out there with my shovel and trowel and my nails full of dirt, I was struck by an old memory. When my sister and I were wee lasses we would go down to the creek behind our house and build bowls and sculptures and walls from the clay soil on the banks. Perfection was in the process not the product. And so it is now. Joy in the digging and in the daily measure of the season growing to its fullest.

Not everything is thriving in part because my "good enough" philosophy doesn't bode well for sensitive plants, but that comes with the territory. I dislike the notion that "if you can't do it right, don't do it at all." I say if you can't do it right, do it half-assed and enjoy yourself along the way.

I know it's not even June yet and that the heat will come on in my house at least once more before the Fourth of July, but let it be known that the toes are silvered up and strapped into their new red shoes. The veggies are planted. The first official camping trip is on the books. How lucky I am to live this.

It's the end of the day and we dip into the early, pale end of twilight. The only clouds in the sky are like sweet exhalations; the breath of a woman napping in the park. I open my mouth. I swallow.

Ecola State Park

I took an overnight trip to say hello to the ocean and to see what nice spring clothes the forest trails picked up this season. A dozen different greens, a layering of mud and a mottled sky. Back in the urban noise for no more than an hour, I already miss the racket of waves and wind and want to run back, lash myself down to one of those mammoth driftwood logs or hide under the canopy of infant leaves and refuse to go. I always want more ocean, more bright air, more chartreuse, celadon and sap.

We are in the midst of Lilac Stealing Month here in Portland. Every year for fifteen years, Sean has shown up in late April and early May with lavender, white and plum bouquets snatched from any large prolific lilac plant drooping over the sidewalk. Blooms in varying stages of decay are now scattered around the house. Someday, I will plant my own lilac bush, I promise. I'll put it right out front and applaud any man who stops to break off a branch or two.