The End of Summer
The downy feather, floated soft and white, its tip punctuated by barbs of blue. Was this a blue bird’s feather? I had seen them visit the garden, alighting on the trellis we’d built out of cattle panel for the cucumbers and tomatoes. Or maybe a jay, they greet me with their rucus shouts each morning as I step from my porch. I placed it on my hand and tried to take a picture but no matter how hard I tried it wouldn’t stay… not unless I pinched it between my fingers that is and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to keep it if it needed to fly, so I let it fly and returned to the mounds dirt and the potatos left to dig.
Yesterday was the first day of school, first grade for my oldest and part-day preschool for my youngest. The first time my youngest has been enrolled in school since we moved to our country home last year. Three hours of time to myself and I felt giddy. A quivering kind of excitement in my heart. A beginning and an end.
I can’t help myself but be sentimental, grasping for the babies my children once were and will never be again. During school drop off, I’ve always asked my oldest if I can hug him when we reach the cross walk that leads him away from me and into school — sometimes he says “yes” and my chest is filled with joy, and sometimes he says “no” and I am glad for his bodily autonomy, but I also kind of want to cry. Yesterday he said “yes” and I gave him a tight squeeze and a kiss on his thick blonde hair.
I wear my heart and the threading scratches of squash vines on my sleeve and the garden is my solace. So I dig in, rejoicing in the solitude and the newfound ability to focus on a single task for as long as my jittery mind will allow. No one needs a snack, there are no fights to break up, no instructions to give. I dig up potatoes as big as my hand. There are innumerable bugs — worms, red centipedes, wolf spiders with egg sacs riding on their backs, ants, beetles, larva of several sorts, including the cocoon of a tomato hornworm/hawk moth. I give thanks that my garden is a habitat.
I recently read a blog post — I’m sorry I can’t remember the author’s name but I’m not going to say anything nice, so no matter— that was lamenting the use of mulch in garden beds as it “gives garden pests a place to hide,” i read on to about where she started talking about pill bugs and centipedes. You call those garden pests? Insects are my gardens residents. The clean up crew and aeration company. My garden is a microcosm of diverse flora and fauna of which I intend to bolster not inhibit. It exists within a larger ecosystem and it is my hope that my garden friends and I can contribute to it in our way.
Today, the second day of school, I’m spending my morning on self-care — baking, milling flour, burning candles and enjoying the ephemeral beauty left in my decaying floral display. The memories of the joy and strife of the summer past is strong on my mind and in the brown tone that kisses my skin. Childhood is ephemeral — a moment — it is the love and lessons that I as their mother know will last forever.
