Establishing Roots

7/24/17

After months of reality checks as they pertain to my daily existence (losing my Dad, losing the privacy of 16 trees and many more limbs), today was the day I actually planted plants in the ground. While I started this spring season with flower pots and hanging ferns, a first at the Springhouse, and I've pruned and weeded numerous times in the three years I have lived here, this establishing the yard week has finally arrived.

We began when Phillip came last Tuesday to purchase and plant the first of many new trees - a white dogwood to honor our father. I've spent the sweltering, near-100 degree days watering it to keep it alive. Last night's storm was the first rain in weeks, so the ground was particularly receptive to planting the liriope and dusty miller I bought at the beginning of the summer. I will also plant the gardenias in the ground today, and maybe some of the overflowing sweet potato vines and transplanting the pink petunias - all favorites that Mom particularly enjoyed in her gardens and pots.

This week also marks the installation of the fence posts on Thursday, next week the pickets, and sometime in the fall, the fence will be white. Chelsea will be able to enjoy the yard safely, and the surround of a white picket fence will define the space that will become our eventual cottage garden that I so desperately need in order to feel ownership of this property Judy and I call home.

I look forward to the sweat and tears, dirt under my fingernails, and energy spent making this yard mine instead of one I inherited. It will be beautiful again.

Losses big and bigger

2017. If I had to define it in one word, it would be a year of loss.

I lost my very dear friend Ann Northington in early January.
Another good friend, John Irby, passed away in late January.
I lost my Dad in May.
One close friend lost a brother, another friend lost a husband last week.

That's just lives lost.

There's the lost trust of my brothers.
Not for lack of trying, we lost all hope of finding a job for Judy.
My lost faith in my contractor who never finished the job on my house.
The loss of 16 trees so far (and the ultimate privacy they afforded) in our back yard.
Coming to the realization that I can't commit as a PREP teacher for HCPS schools.

Those are the personal losses.

Then, the impact of a faltering government and lost faith in the highest office of the country.
The lies. The absence of integrity and honor. The absurdity of the fallout of incompetence.

A weak person might not be able to sustain a sense of normalcy with all of this loss. But I came across this quote this year that has given me hope:

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

So that's how I intend to proceed.