2016 In Reverse

I knew a guy that used to joke about the Christmas letters people write.  He found it funny that these letters were either chalk-full of the amazing things people did all year or it was a laundry list of their woes.  At the time, I laughed along and said to myself, “that’s so true.”

That was all way before Facebook where this sort of external showcasing of your life is now so commonplace.  But even after a decade of change spurred on by social media’s entrenchment in our lives, I remember the meaning behind his joke: our lives are more complex than our accomplishments and they can be more joyful than our woes might tell.  You don't just have a great year or a bad year - it's almost always a mixture of both.  

Even knowing that it’s impossible to capture the essence of an entire year in a single letter or blog post I find that here on the brink of Christmas, at the end of the year, I wanted to write something about 2016.  If I followed the Christmas letter theme, I’d start with January and work my way through the seasons.  But I think life is most often remembered in reverse, like a movie watched while the tape is rewound.

With that in mind, here's how I remember 2016.

December:  It’s been colder than normal.  We’ve had lots and lots of rain this year which is good.  We need it after years of drought.  I spent a lot of time on the couch, under heated blankets, falling asleep too early in the evening.  We didn’t drive around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights as much as last year.  The season seemed to sneak up on me and I felt like I missed things that should have been important.  We did spend one magical weekend at Disneyland where I felt blessed to be able to afford a trip like that, blessed to have a daughter just the right age to love the trip.  Blessed to have a wife that knew I needed a little magic and happiness in my life.

Splash Mountain at Disneyland

November: Felt like a hard month for me in ways I wasn't quite prepared for or expecting.  It’s supposed to be a time of Thanksgiving but I felt cheated.  Looking back I can see that I let myself withdraw from life more than I should have.  I kind of closed up and went into hibernation.  

October: I can’t even tell you about this month.  Looking at my calendar I can see it was a busy month at work and I know we did the whole Halloween thing.  But the month, in general, is just a blur.  

September: Just a few months after celebrating his graduation from the Royal Canadian Mounties program, my nephew sent us a picture of himself and his girlfriend on the top of a mountain and she was wearing a huge diamond ring on her finger.  The whole family was thrilled and we can't wait to get back together and celebrate something so joyful as a wedding.  

The happily engaged couple

August: Hot and miserable in Northern California as per normal.  August is also the time when our kids head back to school.  My daughter started 3^rd grade this August.  As with most milestones in her life, I found myself dwelling on the swift passage of time with a mix of nostalgia and excitement for the future.  We picked her up from school and went out for ice cream that afternoon.  I remember wanting to share pictures from that day with my mom who felt so far away to me.

A beautiful night in Boston's Fenway Park

July: At the end of July we took a long-planned-for trip to Boston to see the Red Sox play a couple games and do the touristy things.  It was a welcome distraction for me and I loved getting to show the ladies in my life the city on the other coast that I love so much.  

Earlier in July, we flew back to my home state of Washington and met the rest of my family for the funeral.

June: On a night at the end of June I left work and saw that I had two missed phone calls on my cell.  One was from my brother-in-law and one was from my step-dad.  I instinctively knew why they were calling so I didn’t want to call them back.  Not yet.  The longer I waited, the longer I could ignore what they had to tell me.  

A little while later we sat close together on the couch and told Bailey that her Grandma had died. 

May: We took a quick trip to Portland, Oregon.  I managed to blog about it and post some pictures well after the fact.  My daughter got her ears pierced on this trip.  We were trying to carry on with life and do normal things.

April: I finished building a raised-bed vegetable garden I had wanted to build for months.  April in Sacramento is beautiful.  I proudly sent my mom photos of my garden’s progress.  She loved to garden and loved that I loved to garden.  Every time she came to visit, she’d spend time reading a book in a chair in my garden.  I felt a surge of pride whenever I thought she was enjoying herself in the gardens I worked so hard to create.  

March: Mom called and told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer but not to worry because they caught it early and her prognosis was good.  I cried that night.  I’m not used to good outcomes when it comes to cancer.  I sat down that night and wrote her a long text message and told her that I was sad but also thankful for her and for the things she taught me, did for me, sacrificed for me, and cultivated in me.  She wrote back and I saved a screen shot of what she sent because I knew I would want to remember her words.  

February: We went to Hawaii for the first time ever and had a wonderful trip.  Life was beautiful and good and we felt so lucky to be alive and to see such a different and beautiful part of the world.  We went to a luau one night and watched the sun set into the Pacific ocean while someone nearby blew into a Pu shell to signify the end of the day.  It was glorious. 

One of my life's best moments

Maui sunset

January: It was a new year and we had lots to look forward to.  It feels like such a long time ago now.  When January of 2017 comes, I hope that there are things to look forward to again.  

Until Then, I Have Enough

Nothing is perfect here yet.  I have ideas and energy to give them shape.  But it takes time.  Time to plan, time to plant, time to turn the leaves and lawn clippings into compost, time to consider water in a dry land, time to let things fill in.  I want intriguing pathways and inviting places to sit – or at least places that would make you imagine we actually sit in the garden.  I want all the interest we’re supposed to have: evergreen structure for the barren winter; pops of color for the heralding of spring; interesting bark, variegated foliage, and shade from summer’s wrath; and heartbreaking, nostalgic color in autumn.  I want a sunny patch of fertile soil for the pleasure of contributing praise-worthy tomatoes to our dinner.  And I want a rock, half buried in the shadowy ground, covered in moss.

I think I will have these things someday.  Or, at least, I will have some of these things some days.  Until those days though, I will remember that I have enough.  I will remember that some day I will want nothing more than what I had today. 

The light from the setting sun gave me pause.  A bright, quiet moment to be savored.

The scent of jasmine, finally climbing the arbor with vigor, was intoxicating.

I live within driving distance of the Napa Valley, aka "Wine Country".  I was pleased to see grapes
already growing on this vine in the ground less than a month. 

Birdhouse and suet created at a birthday party . . . more for us than the birds.

It looks like she's running from the camera but she's really just chasing
her new dog, Gus.  Her laughter and his tiny yips fill the evening with
innocence and my heart with gratitude.

Suffering from a Lack of Focus

It’s become increasingly common for me to have conversations with friends about our growing inability to maintain focus on one thing at a time.  We blame the internet.  Commercial break?  Check Facebook real quick.  Pause in the conversation while you wife sneezes?  That’s a perfect chance to check your fantasy football scores.  Three minutes before you have to go to a meeting? Refresh your e-mail to see if anyone else has written.  Sad to say, it’s gotten bad enough for me that it’s no longer uncommon to stop what I’m reading mid-sentence and check stock prices or to see if any of my favorite bloggers have published a new post.  And if someone posts an online article with links in it, you can pretty much write-off any chances of me finishing the original article.

    

All this is to say that this sort of internet fueled ADD has bled over into my unplugged life.  It used to be that I could go outside and tackle a project and work on it until completion.  What is more likely to happen now is that I will go out to deadhead the dianthus and I’ll end up working on sprinklers, picking up liquid amber balls of pain and fury, or check my phone to see just how hot it is because it sure feels hot.  Oh look, here comes the ice cream truck.  I wonder what kind of profit they make on days like this.  Do you think that’s a good job or is it just miserable driving around listening to that one song all day long?  What is that song anyway?  I should Google it.  Now what was I going to do with these pruners in my pocket? 

Gardening is supposed to provide us with a break from these kinds of distractions isn’t it? 

Our drought and the heat make these succulents feel like the only responsible plant I can buy right now.

This past weekend being Memorial Day weekend, I decided to make a mini-vacation of it and I took a couple extra days off.  This allowed me ample opportunity to work in the yard in the mornings before the afternoon temps hit close to 100 degrees.  While I worked, I tried really, really hard to focus on one task at a time.  I was mildly successful.  But at after a few hours of weeding, it occurred to me that maybe multi-tasking does have its benefits.  For one, it allows you to use some different muscles and relax others.  The biggest advantage of focusing on one task though has to be the satisfaction that comes when you actually complete something and know that you’ve done it well. 

I installed a brick mow strip to border a new bed I created a few weeks ago. 

I still need to add some sand to the cracks between the bricks and clean up some of the excess dirt from excavating.

I weeded that new bed, a bed I made last year, and the vegetable garden. 

My fenced-in vegetable garden as seen through a young pomegranate tree.

I planted plugs of dwarf mondo grass in a small foundation bed.  I trimmed and pruned the dead wood from several trees.  I hacked off an enormous amount of mulberry branches that were touching the roof of the house.  I extended my drip irrigation system to include a few more plants that were looking worse for wear. 

One of the trees I trimmed was this potted Chaste tree.  When this tree blooms, it's pretty awesome.

I replanted a Strawberry Tree that was competing with the lawn to gain a foothold.  And I thought about, but decided against, cleaning out the potting shed.  But I want credit for just thinking about it because the thought alone made me tired and irritable.

This tree looks so pathetic right now.  Its droopy leaves and sparse
branches make this look like the landscape equivalent of Charlie Brown's
Christmas tree.  Hopefully my decision to replant it now will help
it along and not sped up its death.

I stretched my body and my mind and I came away with a renewed appreciation for what a little focus can do.

Same view as the one above a couple shots but with a different focus.
See, even my pictures can't stay focused on one thing!

Will We Still Garden When Grief Comes?

In the past couple weeks I have watched two close friends experience the grief of unexpectedly losing a parent.  Another friend is closing in on a year without his father and the grief is still an ever-present weight in his life.

Nothing focuses our attention on what matters quite as acutely as grief does.  In those moments we cling to whatever gives us hope, whatever gives us peace, or whatever just feels safe.  All of the other things in our lives just recede into the background, into what life used to be like.  Before.

I keep this photo at my desk at work as a reminder that what matters most to me can fit in a single picture.

As an outsider in this time of grief, I have watched my friends turn different directions.  One turned to a faith in God that had been dormant for years.  He wanted to experience something he hadn’t felt in a long time.  Another turned away from God saying he couldn’t believe in an all-powerful and all-loving being that wouldn’t give his father peace before he died.   This friend sought peace in other things I won't name here.  

Life is filled with things for us to do.  We stay busy with friends, hobbies, passions, and pursuits.  But when grief visits, we suddenly find it not only easy to walk away from these things, but necessary.  These things might have felt like a critical component of ourselves just days before.

Watching my friends struggle and watching what they choose to do in their time of need has prodded me to consider what my response would be.  What would I turn to?  What would no longer feel important?  If it would not be important to me in a time of pain, should it really be important now? 

I was pondering these very questions while working in the yard on Sunday and I quickly realized that gardening is one of those things that could melt away if tragedy struck.  The weeds would grow and I wouldn’t care.

Grass and weeds creep in on the orange tree's territory.  It is littered with last year's fruit and this year's blooms.

Tomatoes would rot on the vine but it wouldn’t matter because I wouldn’t have an appetite.  The sprinklers would fall into disrepair and I would neglect them.  I would absolutely stop turning the compost.  But I believe that I would eventually return to gardening.  I would return to it because it is a quiet way to spend a day.  I would return to it because my laboring would help my body and my heart feel in tune.  I would return to gardening because it allows the mind to wander.  I would return to it because of the perspective that gardening provides on seasons, life and death, renewal, beauty, hope, hard work, and sustenance. 

Someone else could worry about feeding the birds.

I am thankful for my garden.  I am thankful for a quiet place within which I can mull over the questions I have.  I am thankful for the peace I have and I hope that I can use that peace to share a little comfort with my friends who need it.  

Tom Seaver, The Constant Gardener

There are two things that I am especially obsessive about.  One is gardening and the other is baseball.  Neither of which are very sexy in today’s culture but that’s okay with me.  I love them both for very different reasons.

So when I read through my e-mails this morning and came across a baseball story called “The Constant Gardener” I just had to read it.

The article is written by Pat Jordan about his long-time friend and baseball Hall of Famer, Tom Seaver.  Seaver’s career began several years before I was born but he was so good that he was able to pitch long enough that I got to see him join my beloved Red Sox for their historic (and heartbreaking) 1986 season when I was old enough to appreciate his contribution to the game. 

Seaver was known for his fastball, his bull-dog determination, and his ability to strike out hitters.  He’s a throwback to another type of player.  A real man’s man kind of guy.  What’s a guy like that doing as the centerpiece for an article called “The Constant Gardener” I wondered?

As I read through the lengthy article I discovered that after Seaver retired from baseball he eventually left his Greenwich, New York home and bought a parcel of land in Calistoga, California which is in the heart of the Napa wine country about 80 miles west of me here in Sacramento.  Seaver converted the land into a vineyard and his business, Seaver Family Vineyards, now produces about 600 cases of cabernet each year. 

Seaver grew up in Fresno, California where his father was in the “raisin business”.  Gardening didn’t interest Tom until he got to the big leagues though.  It was at that point that Seaver returned to his roots because discovered that gardening was a good way for him to relax between the days he pitched.  

"Outlining a vineyard," he said, "is the same as outlining your pitches for a game, or outlining an artwork. I shouldn't tell you this, 'cause I don't want you to think I didn't value my pitching. But if I could go back and have a second run at it, I'd have become an artist."

This quote from Seaver is amazing to me.  I never had the talent to play baseball at that level, but if I did I can’t help but think that my achievements at that level would certainly go down as my life’s work.  That I was put on this planet to play ball.  That Tom Seaver would consider giving all that up to be an artist, to do something like painting or gardening instead, is at once absurd and wonderful. 

He went silent for a moment, looking out over his property. Finally he said, "This was a blank palette when I first saw it. Now it's the most exciting thing I've ever done."

Because Seaver’s career came to an end in the mid-1980s  he missed the period in baseball in which the players started making the really big bucks.  Seaver earned over $1 million a year only twice in his 20 seasons.  He made approximately $6 million total.  That is a lot of money, no doubt, but considering that the league minimum in 20013 is roughly $500,000 a year and the average annual salary of a baseball player is almost $3.5 million, you could argue that Seaver would have been much better off financially if he had been born a decade later. 

When the author of the article asked him about missing out on the big paydays, Seaver responded by saying:

"I started to lose interest," he said. "I wanted to go home. I couldn't do it anymore. I never was pissed I missed the big paydays. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. If I'd made that $30 million a year, maybe I'd just have bought that huge, finished vineyard and let others do it all. I'd have missed out on the pleasure of being in the vineyards every day. My pleasure has always been in the work, not the ego."

As gardeners, I think we can all relate to this.  I think there are probably times when we think about how nice it would be to just write a check and have someone create the garden we’ve always dreamed about.  But if we did that, we’d miss out on the work it took.  And without that work, we’d miss out on the understanding of the garden.  And without the understanding we lose our sense of accomplishment.  And, quite frankly, I think Seaver was right.  The pleasure is in the work. 

Seaver wanted to be an artist.  But he was a Hall of Fame pitcher instead.  Now in his late 60’s, Seaver finds that maybe he’s been an artist all along. 

Just then, the sun came up on cue, click, like stage lights in a theater. It was a pale, reddish-blue color on an overcast day. Tom was disappointed. He'd wanted me to see it in all its fiery glory. Still, the sun's pale light on the vineyards was eerie and beautiful, the vines all darkish shadows without color, until they became a dark green flecked with purple as the sun rose higher, like a French Impressionist painting.

Tom said, "In a way, I'm painting this vineyard as if it was my artwork."

Four Cars and a Chainsaw

I have sold four cars in my life.  Each time I sold the car it was because my life had changed and I needed something different.

My first car was terrible.  Only one of the four doors opened from the outside (and it wasn’t the driver’s door).  It burned through a quart of oil every 80 miles so I always had an entire case of Penzoil in the trunk.  Within six months of owning it the alternator went out and the battery died and along with the battery my resolve to keep the car on life support died with it.  Besides, I was enrolling in college and I would be working three jobs and I needed a more reliable car to get me around – preferably one that friends wouldn’t have to slide through open windows in order to get into. 

My second car was a stick shift.  I bought it even though I didn’t know how to drive a stick because it was so much cooler than my last car.  After a couple herky-jerky hours of practice in a parking lot I thought I was ready to go.  Turns out, you don’t really know if you can drive a stick shift until you get stopped at a red light on a steep hill.  Also, as it turns out, that’s a terrible time to learn that you can’t drive a stick shift.  I kept that car all through college and after I mastered the clutch I fell in love with that car.  I took it on road trips, smoked cigars in it, discovered great music in it, had talks about Life and Love in it.  As far as cars go, it was definitely my first true love.  But then I got married and we had decided to move to my wife’s hometown in California and a car without air conditioning just wasn’t going to cut it.  So I traded that car in and almost made enough money on it to cover the cost of the new snow tires I wouldn’t need any more and the stereo I had loved so much. 

Big enough for two people.  Not quite big enough for two people, a dog, and a baby.

My third car was a pretty normal young adult car.  It was a nearly perfect compromise for that time in our life.  It was sporty looking but reliable, got respectable gas mileage but had a few unnecessary frills and it had A/C and a manual transmission (I did say I learned to love driving a stick shift).  That car served us well for several years and the air conditioning definitely helped me get used to the California heat.  But we sold that car when we found out that we were expecting a child.  You just can’t get a baby in and out of a car seat when you’re driving a low-to-the-ground 2-door.  So we bought an SUV for my wife and I got the truck I had always wanted.

Years later I’m now the one driving the SUV and my wife has a new-to-us car.  We sold the truck last weekend.  True to the pattern, life has changed again.  We have decided it is time to pack up 10-years’ worth of junk and move to a new neighborhood in a better school district because our daughter will (impossibly it seems) start school next fall.  And, frankly we never thought we’d stay in our current house as long as we have.  Now you might be wondering why on Earth I would sell a truck before moving.  I know I am.  I already miss having that thing.  The plain truth is that we didn’t need three vehicles but we did need some extra cash for down payments and real estate fees and all those other expenses that come with moving.  So I let go of the truck I drove for nearly a decade.

A small truck is a great thing for a gardener.

We are feeling cautiously optimistic.  We don’t know if our house will sell or when it might.  We don’t know if we’ll find the perfect house for the rest of our lives.  But we feel like we’re in a good position.  We don’t absolutely have to move.  We can take our time and make the right decisions for our family.  But tempering that optimism is a bit of melancholy.  This was, after all, our first house.  This is where our dog achieved his ultimate goal of becoming an inside dog.  This is where Santa has found our daughter every Christmas of her life.  This is the house we managed to furnish to our mutual liking in spite of my wife’s “denim furniture” phase.  This is the house where we figuratively and literally sank our roots.  I have cut down a bunch of burdensome trees and planted new ones that I was excited to see grow.  I have planted boxwood hedges that haven’t had a chance to fill in yet.  Just a few weeks ago I planted a hundred white tulips that might not bloom before we leave.  So, yeah, I’m a little sad to say goodbye before I’ve seen the culmination of all that effort.

One of several trees that fell under my reign here.

But if there’s one thing that selling cars and cutting down trees has taught me about life it’s that letting go of something old is the only way you can grab onto something new.

What a Beautiful World

Although I love to read I am a very slow reader.  As I go through a book, I pronounce each word in my head as if I were speaking it aloud.  It takes me a long time to finish a book of significant length but if the book is good enough, it’s an endeavor I gladly pursue. 

                                                                                                                    

But I also enjoy the satisfaction that comes from finishing a story.  Perhaps because of that satisfaction and because I am a slow reader, I am drawn to short stories.  But I think that short stories are under appreciated these days which is a shame because short stories marry the best of the full length novel with the best of poetry.  In a short story you have characters and plot and prose just like in a novel.  But in a great short story there are things left out – things the reader must assume or imagine on their own just like in a poem.  The writer must choose their words more carefully in a short story as in a poem.  Done correctly, a short story has both the weight and the agility of a broadsword that can cut right through your malaise and leave you feeling as if you’ve just been reshaped. 

A few years back I picked up an anthology called “The Best Short Stories of the Century”.  While I was familiar with several of the stories in the book I had not heard of either Alice Elliot Dark or her short story In the Gloaming.  I didn’t even know what a “gloaming” was or how you’d get in one. 

My office building isn't exactly breath taking, but I was charmed by it last night.

I can’t tell you that I remember every line of this story or that the characters (a mother and her son who was dying from AIDS) made a huge impact on me.  But I can tell you that I was enchanted by the feeling and the mood of this story.  I learned that what I had always thought of as dusk or twilight is also called “the gloaming.”  There was something about that word that I felt drawn to.  It somehow gave new meaning to something I had experienced many times before.  Knowing a new name for it gave it another level of mystery.  Twilight was no longer that brief time after sunset but before total darkness.  It now reminded me of this transforming story.  It reminded me that our lives are sometimes strange and sometimes mundane, sometimes short and sometimes long, sometimes contemplative and sometimes we just don’t pay attention to the way life (or light) changes.

It was half light and half dark and the leaves were half gone.  Everything was in balance.

Filmmakers call it “the magic hour”.  I like that, but in my experience the magic lasts just a few minutes.  And when I walk outside this time of year I am sometimes astounded to find that I have stepped into just the kind of lightness that I associate with the gloaming.  It happened to me last night. 

I felt lucky to be alive.  I felt like standing in the parking lot until it passed.  I felt alive and quiet and a bit giddy.  I also knew, quite acutely, that too much of my life is being spent under a roof and away from windows.  I need these moments of clarity and I need to keep making myself available to them. 

I need to go for more walks.  I need to stand out in the garden even when it is cold.  I need to remember that our lives are meant to be inspired, that we are supposed to revel in the natural beauty of our planet, that we don’t need to capture or prolong these moments just as long as we keep looking for them.

In brighter light, this plant looks forlorn, neglected and out of place.  Last night it seemed like it was meant to be there.