Imbued with the Spirit and Strength of Nature

It has been at least a month since I've written anything substantial about gardening or plants here on my blog. Funny to have been so silent, but I've been rediscovering so many things about who I am, and I think it's safe to say, I have been growing a great deal.

Some days I feel like that vine that ate the garage last summer. I'm blooming and blooming and I just cannot stop growing and reaching for the sunshine.

Lan Su Chinese Garden in downtown Portland, OR. I introduced some amazing new friends from Paris to this Stumptown gem last month.

Much of what's been happening has also felt a lot like suturing a wide open wound. Long ago I forgot where I was going, even where I wanted to go. I only recently realized that most of my adult life has been based solely on what I was able to do within many physical and personal limitations. I hated it.

Pomegranate bloom at Lan Su Chinese Garden.

I am free of those restraints now for the first time in my adult life, and the rediscovery of myself has been a very complicated process. It wouldn't have been possible either without all of the friends who've come back to help me with all of their love, support and feedback. Many of them had mourned the loss of who I'd been for very long and I cannot explain how amazing it is to see their excitement and emotion right now. 

This Yucca filamentosa aka Adam's Needle is one of the first plants I ever germinated. It was important for me to really enjoy its blooms this year. 

Ever since I can remember my life has been imbued with a love and interest in nature and plants. Embracing this part of myself has been a big part of my recent activities as I've sought out many different kinds of activities beyond the garden gate. It is difficult to describe how these activities have been guided, but that's because it's been a day-to-day thing.

Streamers from an outdoor concert I attended in Portland with my cousin.

I have been enjoying every moment and feeling everyday and the sensations from both all feel like gifts now as I try to enjoy as many different kinds of activities as I am able to outdoors and with friends or family. After having spent so many summers indoors, unable to walk much, this is a huge change for me. 

I am remembering what it feels like to filter and feel things other than the pain I felt for so many years from the swelling and discomfort my condition caused. I am such a sensation seeker and I have been loving all the things I've been feeling and sensing again.

May Pole ribbons from the Finnish American Folk Festival of Naselle, WA. 

I also still see plants everywhere.

The finished piece—and yes, this is what a summer sky can look like in the Pacific Northwest.

Even when I'm enjoying other things I still see their meaning and importance all around me in different communities and groups. I take note of how others care about the plants where they live. It still fascinates me to see the nostalgia we attach to things we cannot control.

I have also committed myself to seeing and doing other things too. That's why I haven't been here too much recently. I am expanding growth in every direction right now.

I am growing to retrain myself.

I will prune what I need to again later.

I felt trapped in a corner too for a long time. I think we have all had this feeling.

Plants are still at my center.

I still adore clipped shrubs very much—especially when so much depends upon the white cat beside them. 

I say this as I still see myself overlapping my love of art history and design with plant life more and more. I am imbuing meaning and emotions into so many things when I touch them—even when it's just a snapshot.

Driftwood at the Washington Coast. 

Then there is the ineffable experience of my region and its natural beauty and I have been re-experiencing my place here recently probably more than anything else. It creates a sacred feeling for me and it is silent. Everything about who I am springs from this place deep inside of me and the silence brings me much peace and calm.

A typical coastal salmon river in the Pacific Northwest. 

I am not well-rested yet, but I am working on it. Since I have at least 10 years to catch up on it might take me awhile to feel more calm, collected and self-possesed.

My father and I as I channel my own inner Jacques Cousteau. 

Spending time near water has been a high priority for me. I miss spending time in boats and this is something I plan to do more of in the future.

Two Great Blue Herons we spotted in a tree near the mouth of the river in the tidal zone.

The sounds, sights, and sensations on the water felt like home to me.

Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maxium) seeds.

I saw plenty of seeds while on my adventures too. (Of course I had to add those.)

Native Vine Maple (Acer macrophyllum) reaching over the water. 

I also very much enjoyed observing the many communities of plants along the riverbank—but that's a whole other post.

Begonia boliviensis in my garden. 

Then there is my garden back at home. I have not been in it much as I still connect a lot of unhappy memories with toiling in its soil. I buried a lot of distress and unhappiness here. There were many lonely hours spent wondering about my marriage. I also worked hard on my plants as a means to build the denial deep inside of myself of the reality that I no longer liked or even respected my husband very much. I was in denial of this fact for a very long time.

To say we'd grown apart is now an understatement since I now know we never grew or built anything together in the first place. I think in many ways this lack of a relationship is what drove me to plants more than anything.

I am currently separating these feelings from my garden.

And the cats are doing as they please...

Right now I am editing the plants. I still have no idea where I will be living a year from now, but no matter what, this needs to be done. Maybe I will be here, maybe I won't.

Oddly, I was driven to remove plants I'd planted that I'd purchased long ago because my ex had expressed some kind of interest in them.

He never really liked the garden much though, and never sat and enjoyed it much at all, and like my illness and the mortgage, it was just another burden. I am happy to be free of this black cloud now and I hope to see my garden look amazing one more time. 

The wine grapes were also some of the first plants to go.

And now as my garden is in a stage where it looks like the bedroom of a rebellious and messy teenager I stand firmly again on terra firma. Sure there are dead plants in pots like the plates of rotting food that often get misplaced beside the dirty socks in the rooms of our youth across the nation—but I am looking at this now and I am laughing. It is seriously funny to me.

Someone keeps telling me, "It's ok." As I look around at everything I just keep laughing. Here in this moment it might seem like I have a lot to do, but I'll get it done. I am pretty sure my friend it correct. No matter what, I've been through a lot, and it will be ok.

A Welcome Guest in my Seedy Garden

These are my babies—this year. I am rather proud of them, but I am not always the best mother to my seedlings. With so much going on, and with more kids coming through than ever, it is difficult to keep track of them all. I just hope that many of these can survive their time with me. I really mean to be a good plant mom, but sometimes, it's so hard when you have so many. Ugh!

The grassy looking seedlings right above this caption are Freesia alba. I cannot wait for these guys to pull through and bloom for me.

My single Espelette Pepper from last winter produced spice and plenty of fertile seeds! 

Recently I discovered my secondary asthma has worsened and this frustrates me daily but I am feeling better. Gardening has kept me so happy during the last 6 or 7 years though so I am using it as my secondary medicine and even if the seedlings mean more work, they are so cheerful I just cannot help myself. They need me as I need them.

Seeds: The ORIGINAL Earthmovers. 

(ASTHMA NOTE: You need neither wheezing nor a cough to have asthma though they are the most frequently listed symptoms. You can have a version similar to mine, where slowly, over time, your lungs swell.)

Yes, I grow grass for our cats. Once you rip out the lawn you need to keep them from wandering over to the neighbors' yards, right?

With my health improving, I am finding that things are returning to normal, but I am significantly more tired from all of the recent garden and house activity. I just hope that my lack of energy and feeling better don't combine to hurt the plants. 

Pregnant Hellebore bloom. I am waiting to harvest the seeds for my ETSY store. They seem to take forever. 

Tonight, after walking the garden circle around the house—just as I was about to enter back into the house by way of the side door—I noticed Mona the cat acting strangely. Staring down at a moving object walking quickly along the ground, she didn't even notice me as I hurried over to watch with her. I was amazed to find this rather large ground beetle. Mona was surprised too to say the least!

Sometimes we have to wonder where these things come from, but then we need to accept that we don't need to know everything, and we must let these thoughts go. With my New American Garden design, I am not surprised I am attracting wildlife. When things are left to be part wild, and part planned, and you have plants everywhere, it really becomes a different place. And that different place, well, it takes ALL kinds and I mean all kinds. 

In my own life and garden, I will accept that I am not always in control of anything, and that I cannot always do my best in either, and when the unexpected guest or surprise appears, I will stand near these things, watch their multiplicity, and I will take a deep breath to remind me how happy I am to be alive.

I will be the reed of grass humbly dancing in the wind—rather than the mighty oak that cannot withstand the barrage, falling to pieces.

So dance little seedlings and show me that you won't break in the wind! How else will you begin to thrive if you cannot dance in the wind?

TO BE CONTINUED...

Out of my Illness Ill-nest

Whenever summer comes around I get excited, but then I have to remember, summer is my garden's best season, but it is not always mine. It takes longer for me to recover from a swelling, and there is simply more to do, so that means an additional chunk of time taken from my life that I hadn't planned to lose in the first place. To add to this irritation, this past weekend there was a one-day conference here in Portland concerning Hereditary Angioedema, its three types, and what treatment options are available for all of them. We left with the realization that my Type III HAE is really as crazy and as unpredictable as it feels, we were told there is no treatment anywhere on the horizon for me, but to help that process along, I gave them blood and DNA samples so I understand now that it's all out there for the right researcher to investigate and that's kind of exciting. So, with that in order, it's back to work.

My Egyptian walking onions are all ready to walk out on me. Maybe being surrounded by the jungle that is our garden right now has inspired them to take the walk they need in order to get better spacing for next year. I hate to anthropomorphize, but this little army of onions really cracks me up. Luckily, every single part of them tastes great too. 

I have also finally started to break open the Christmas houseplant terrariums I'd planted to help those plants continue on their journey. The heart I found at a thrift store recently and since I love topiary so much I stuffed it and planted some baby's tears in it. With all of the rain we've been having, this should do well this year. 

Here is the lovely Julia Child rose. With a chef in your household, who is also a winemaker for Rosa d'Oro, you need to have golden butter colored roses, right? I only have this one, but it is more than enough for us. 

Lastly, here are two of our three black cats (Mona in the foreground, Maurice in back) waiting for the winemaker to return home from California a few nights ago. 

And with that, I'm back on my horse, and off to garden at my employers' home. 

The Blues of Springtime, and Becoming a Therapeutic Foster Parent

As we slowly liquidate the sprouted seedlings in the basement, moving them into larger pots, and then into the neighbor's borrowed greenhouse across the street, I feel spread thinner and thinner. This is the happiest time of the year, it is the busiest time of the year, but it is the most painful time of the year too when my chronic illness and immune system just fall apart. Some part of me says that I am far from the only one using gardening and its many pleasures to alleviate the effects of chronic pain and, just generally, the blues that come with all of this baggage.

Garden therapy is probably the most important job I perform, though now, therapeutic foster care is probably becoming more important. Of course one always hopes that their own children will help them out in the garden, but we all know that it's a lot to ask of a brief visitor in your home with their own troubles and issues. When I started a few months back, I was worried that the kids might hurt some of my plants, but that is far from true. The plants are either ignored, or the blooms are lightly pawed and stared at for rather long periods of time. Crafts for the garden have been far more popular, in general, or anything craft-like. Many of the girls have also loved flower fairies while some boys have actually liked flowers and the complicated process of how things grow.

As things grow, I will return to bartering some plants on craigslist for weeding to alleviate some of my physical stress from the hereditary angioedema. This is a strange lesson for the kiddos to learn, but it is one that they seem to understand far more than I'd thought since many of them already have needed the rules bent for themselves in some way. Needing to enter what I prefer to call an early retirement used to feel pretty horrible when it meant that I had to say NO to many of the career choices I had opening up to me. Now, there is the ability to teach again and to help them with things few adults know how to do for themselves when their own lives fall apart midstream. To live on the fringes, making a life for yourself with dignity and the ability to take pride in your own self-care and the activities you love is not such a horrible thing. I am just so happy that I am able to be a homeowner, with the ability to do the things that I am doing now, with these amazing kids.

Alcatraz: An Inspiration

These are images from my last trip to Alcatraz a few years ago. At that time I had already been ill for a few years. Seeing the gardens in bloom, being brought back to life, really blew me away. I felt kinship with the place in a way. My hereditary angioedema has made me a kind of prisoner too and gardening really opens up the world to me too. The cell I sit in is right here with my laptop, in a zero gravity chair, looking at my walls, flipping through library books. To escape the pain, suffering, and isolation of chronic illness, gardens and plants are the only things that don't make me dwell in the darkness of my own thoughts for long. (Having seen depression and anxiety already, I know how dwelling can make it worse.)
Later, before we boarded our ferry back to San Fran, I bought a book about the gardens of Alcatraz and their history and development. I read it from cover to cover in one night when I couldn't sleep because my legs were so swollen. It freed me in so many ways and it inspired me to keep going. I wish more people understood how wonderful garden therapy can, or could be, for so many different situation and folks.
Funny too when I look back to my first trip to Alcatraz over 10 years ago. One of the few pictures I took that day was of the old greenhouse. I wonder now if I somehow sensed what was coming. At that time, I was nowhere near gardening. My love was for literature and art history. (If you haven't been to Alcatraz—go! It is amazing!)

Swelling Disease

I really don't like putting this photo up, even though it isn't the worst swollen foot experience I have ever had, it's just that I have to do this. Most people have no idea what hereditary angioedema even is, let alone what it can do, and this is just the tip of the iceberg that sank my battleship. Basically, any part of my body can swell for no real good reason other than it is being used too much. That's because I am missing the protein in my blood that repairs swelling. My hands and feet are the worst, followed by my intestines. I also react as though I have allergies and for some unknown reason I am the only person I have ever met who can say that decongestants lower my blood pressure. In addition to those, I take twice the recommended daily allowance of antihistamines and then a whole lot of other things. Maybe this can explain some of the disability problems and why it's strange I like to garden when it can actually hurt me a great deal.

Writing about Illness through Plants

Who knew that you could just throw this stuff out there into the world? For years I have called myself a writer that doesn't write and I suppose that's simply because I have been very, very ill. Concentration isn't one of my strong points now, unless I am in a grocery store line trying not to collapse, but on the whole, I no longer read ten books at once like I used to not too long ago. When I was diagnosed first with hereditary angioedema, a blood disease with no decent treatment, that was when I knew that life would change. Now that I have many other medical problems and medical mysteries that go with them, the only sure thing I can count on, and do, is my garden and the seed germination that occurs all winter long in my basement. I will never be able to have children, and that if fine with me, because somehow growing plants all winter long fills something inside of me in a way that nothing else can. I don't want to use the word faith lightly, but the cycle that goes on now year after year in my basement under some cheap florescent tube lights and a shelf made out of scraps really brightens my days. My hope is that I will be able to write about all of this and not necessarily about the constant pains and worries. Writing was always a dream of mine, but I never would have guessed that so much illness would have brought me back to it. I suppose though, that it is my love of the natural world more than anything that brings me here and it is the thing that brightens the path I am on.