A Tree Grows Through My Sidewalk
But the lilacs are in bloom.
I spent Memorial Day apologizing to the universe.
Because I live in Minnesota, saying Sorry! is my primary form of spiritual expression. Cleaning the yard should be next, but my yard is the reason I was apologizing. Sorry, so sorry, oops, oh my gosh look at the sorry state of this lawn. All that creeping Charlie!
Instead of an amused chuckle, followed by Oh, it’s not so bad. It’s just . . . different, there was silence. Had the Universe taken a vacation day? Gone camping? Fishing? Up North, maybe to Breezy Point? Makes sense. Never too early for golf.
More cursing than weeding. More raking than planting. I had yet to pot a single petunia. The sapphire blooms of the trailing lobelia had shriveled into nesting material. Noxious weeds were taking over: invasive everything, invading everywhere, obvious to everyone but me. Until that moment.
A small maple had found its way through a crack in the sidewalk. It didn’t budge when I pulled.
In my bucket of garden tools were a pair of shears, rusted shut. I’d left them — the bucket, the tools — on the patio over the winter. Rain, snow, sleet, ice, and small animals had worked their mischief. My sins against horticulture are numberless. Please, someone, stab me with a dandelion digger before I hurt another hosta.
So, how’s your week going?
Let’s start over.
On Sunday, the family came to dinner. My son sharpened knives, my daughter mowed the lawn. Then we — four of us, including my daughter-in-law — sat down to a feast that included two iterations of my favorite seasonal ingredient: rhubarb, in sauce and in strawberry-rhubarb crisp. Any meal that ends with a scoop of vanilla ice cream must be good. This one ambushed me with perfection.
Never before had I managed to get everything to the table at the right time and the ideal temperature. Cucumber salad and roasted balsamic peppers, my late husband’s favorites. Potatoes boiled in their skins until firm, crushed coarsely with butter and chopped scallions. (Even my son, who loathes mashed potatoes, devoured these.) Fruit salad weighted with antioxidant-heavy blueberries. For once, the meat thermometer told the truth; my pork tenderloin was moist and savory.
What bliss, to serve up food adjectives in a non-fiction genre.
“Mom. You can make this any time.”
These are the words I live for.
Rhubarb is one of the rewards of living in a climate where the temperature sometimes drops below minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit. Hey, New York Times Cooking. That enervated pink syrup you have the temerity to mix with a fancy white wine and award five stars? Just add a drop of food coloring to some sugar water and spare everyone the work.
Next week, the canner comes upstairs. I will immerse jars of rhubarb chutney in a water bath for five minutes. After they’ve cooled, and I’ve heard the pop that tells me they’re vacuum-sealed, I’ll distribute them to my neighbors. There is nothing the Universe loves more than rhubarb chutney on a plate with Ellsworth cheese curds.
Tuesday: my day to check off some of the noisy, nagging things I’ve been avoiding. I take a deep breath, and open my browser to Big Waste.
I fill in my five-digit zip code. Big Waste wants more. I give them my account number, full name, address — yes, residential — and nine-digit zip code. Again. Again. I go to one Menu. Another. The third looks promising. But none of these Menus, none of the dropdowns, has a category called Yard Waste. How, how, how, do I get rid of these eighteen yard bags filled with weeds and sticks? Don’t weeds and sticks constitute Yard Waste?
I go to Chat. How do I dispose of Yard Waste?
Chat sends me to Menu.
Did that answer your question? Chat asks. No, I type. Chat sends me to Menu.
Hazardous, no. Recycling, no. Construction materials, container (size), dumpster (size): no, no, no. I return to Chat. Chat sends me to Menu. Did that answer your question? I ask for Human. Chat sends me to Menu. After two more go-rounds with Menu, I wait online for elusive Human.
Eleven minutes. Seven. Human shows up. Big Waste is no longer responsible for waste collection in your municipality.
Time for a Xanax coffee break. Two hours later, I locate the correct Municipality web site.
Oh, sweet Municipality! Fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, hometown boy, here. Would like to dispose of Yard Waste.
Municipality provides helpful information about free Yard Waste Disposal Sites, including locations, days and hours open, and materials accepted. (No dead squirrels, I understand, I’ve already buried it next to the dead rabbit. Jumping worms? Are they like jumping beans? Haven’t seen any.)
I do not want to show up at the nearest Disposal Site on a Saturday morning at six a.m., tenth car in line, to learn that my Yard Waste contains a random single-use plastic bag and a Solo cup or two, and is therefore unacceptable.
Drilling down, I learn that I can place my Yard Waste in the alley next to my regular trash container for $4.00 per bag, to be added to the cost of my regular pickup. How many bags do I have?
Six, I write. I just paid my half-year property tax. Can I afford it? I look out the window at my front yard. I haven’t made a dent.
Twelve. I hit Send, and sit down with the cold dregs of my coffee.
Wednesday.
Only yesterday, but I’m having a hard time recollecting.
I showered. Wait, no. But thought about it.
Made a haircut appointment, for Friday. Thank God Betsy had a last-minute opening. Has it really been four months? Two inches past my shoulders, I’m tucking it behind my ears. Almost Covid-length.
Six months. And no pandemic to blame.
Mini, twenty-two years old. Wandering, bumping into walls, my sweet companion can no longer find her litterbox.
She managed to climb onto the bed and under the covers. Safe from the raptors that dive from the skies of her end-of-life dementia, she leaned into me, purring. Having vanquished her predators, and mine, she slept.
Today, Thursday. As if to spite me — have they been hacking my drafts? — the New York Times sends me an email showcasing a recipe for a “crazy easy” rhubarb crisp. The accompanying photo displays the finished dish, topped with — what else? — a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
But the text of the message gives them away. “Mix a tablespoon or so of fresh herbs into the crumbly oat topping (lemon thyme!); add grated ginger to the sugared rhubarb; replace the citrus juice with Grand Marnier,” they advise.
If I added any of those things, would the Universe say, Now that’s different! and forgive my affectation? Nope.
Lilacs are my second reward for life in a cold climate. I have four varieties. They flower in succession throughout the month of May. The deep purple one, a birthday gift from my husband, has been in bloom all week. It’s fuller, more fragrant than the others. It feels like forgiveness. And yet —
If I added lemon thyme to my rhubarb crisp, the Universe would smite that lilac down.
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Four varieties of lilacs? Next year I will pitch a tent in your backyard. You have all summer to get the yard ready for a visitor next spring! P.S. We let our creeping Charlie grow until there is a haze of purple mixed with lemon dandelion. So beautiful!
I live for this kind of writing. It is breathtaking and honest and beautiful and somehow simple at the same time. The feast you made for your family sounds lovely! And oh the lilacs!