Wordless Wednesday: From the Darkness of Winter

The Plant / Music / Writing Room is Growing

Almost everything which matters to me now as a woman—and as a creative individual with an identity that I must nurture and respect so that I can be who I need to be—currently resides with me in this room. 

I've assembled this cocoon to incubate in as I prepare for the next stage in my life. It's like my own little Jiffy pod to germinate in and to begin growing my new taproot so that I can transplant myself when it's time to go. 

I am growing past just being a gardener. I am branching out and reaching for the sun.

Soon, I will be practicing the piano again and I will be thinking of the peace this instrument gave my Grandma Virginia for many years. She loved her piano and I want to honor that by finally enjoying it too. 

I hope the plants won't mind!

Oh, and speaking of plants, they are at the core of my specially arranged space and there will be more to come! This room will be stuffed with plants all winter. 

Soon the vine attached to this window screen will dieback for the winter. Then the winter sun will shine brighter and the walls will grow colder as the Eastern winds hit the back of the house.

I will keep the painting of Paris by my side at all times to remind me of what's to come.

This is the view looking back into the creative space from the dining room.

Monkey Puzzle Tree, Araucaria araucana. 

To get away from this space though—and from all of the work I've been doing around the house—I've vowed to get out of the house for at least one weekend each month.

This past weekend I went to my father's house just north of Astoria in a small community in southwestern Washington. I awoke to the sounds of chainsaws in the hills and when I walked into the kitchen each morning to make my morning coffee, I'd stand at the window and contemplate the Monkey Puzzle Tree while my coffee brewed.

In an effort to get some writing done, I also went to my father's house to be alone and to be inspired. 

For several days I watched the birds as they'd fly up and down the small coastal river behind the house. They were greedily picking at what remained of the salmon from the last run this season. The fish really do spawn and die and yet they still give back to the natural world until every last bone is picked clean.  

The day I left for the trip I went for a five-mile walk beforehand to a specialty grocery store in SE Portland to pick up some special gluten-free ingredients.

While strolling along, I saw this unusual garden ornament and I thought about how funny it was to see a doll in the garden. It tickled my inner goth girl.

But best of all, that day as I walked, before I took off to write, after I'd just finished nesting in my new creative space I saw what I can only call: The writing on the wall.

Top 12 To-Do List for the 2011 Growing Season

There's nothing I'd enjoy more than to complete the many tasks on any one of the lists floating around this house. As a recovered perfectionist, it has pained me greatly to become so physically unable to do so many simple things. But I'm not giving up—and neither should any of you—when swelling or any other kind of chronic malady shows up to bring dark clouds to an otherwise sunny day. I know that when you cannot work, you cannot hire help, but that doesn't mean that you should let it all pile up as I so often do. Things need to be tackled, and when they are tackled, you beat that obstacle and are better prepared for whatever else is coming your way.

(If you are not a gardener struggling with chronic illness, I am pretty sure you have these lists too. If you are able-bodied, and willing to help, think about offering a hand to help another gardener in need. For you too may be there someday.)

1. COVER. Add a larger covered area of some kind, any kind, to the backyard to encourage the cats to recreate outdoors more often. I'd like to have a place back there too. Kids might even figure out that's it's fun. We will see.
2. SHELTER. Enclose the small shed attached to the garage/storage studio and throw out its contents. Consider using the large inherited kiln in this space. The pile of salvaged wood stored in the garage/studio is sure to come in handy for this task.  
3. DEFENSE. Get around to having a gorgeous fence made in the backyard and add a small deck platform to it. After all this time, I'd like to finally say goodbye to that apartment building once and for all. 
4. POWER. Add electrical outdoors outlets since there is not a single one in sight! 
5. GUIDANCE. Clean all paths in the garden from my many piles of debris. Get rid of broken pots. Throw away anything that is not vital to the completion of my goals. No empty planters. Sell them or give them away.
6. STRUCTURE. Make things and things with happen. The fact that our cement stucco home terrifies me is a big hinderance to the completion of this task.
7. EDIT. Be brave and remove plants that show little improvement. Others WILL take their place. I have a pile of those too.
8. VIEW. Buy a projector so we can watch movies with the kids in the backyard this summer. They are so often denied such luxuries and it is such a perfect fit for all involved. 
9. DIRECTION. Better define how the garden functions with more hardscaping projects completed. 
10. SOLID. Finish up the back porch. It's an eyesore in concrete and it needs to be pebble mosaic. 
11. HANG. That's right. Hang all the items I need to hang, and get over my fear of masonry.
12. COLOR. Color me concrete. Paint the architectural details on the front porch and garage/studio and consider repainting the front porch. Finally!

Hope you're all making your lists too!

Pieris japonica 'Valley Valentine.'

The Front Porch Makeover

This is probably not the best picture of the porch at night, but it was the best I could do since it was so cold and wet out this evening that I was shaking too much to do the night scene setting on my camera justice. (I am not a tripod as much as I'd like to be sometimes. NOTE TO SELF: purchase the silly tripod already!)


Ever since we moved in several years ago the front porch has not really been used in the way I would have like for it to have been used. Most notably, I've wanted it not just to be used by cats, and I wanted as much sitting space as could be possible comfortably since it's rather small. Last year I purchased a bench without a back, but this year, thanks to our local IKEA, I was able to purchase the perfect white folding bench with a back for those of us with bad backs. Now I can sit in peace, even when I am experiencing a great deal of pain. There is room for a foster child, my husband—if he could only return home from that vineyard in California!, a cat or two, and even a niece or neighbor on the railing that cannot be seen in the picture. (It's one of those old concrete stucco balustrades.)


My advice to all homeowners is to do up your porch when you move in. This way you can meet your neighbors, find summer homes for your houseplants, and have a tiny bit more space. (More to follow since I have a lot of special plants out there so that I can enjoy them on the porch too.)

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.

Garden Growth

A lot can happen in 4 years.

I Moved a Garden

Several years ago, when we moved into our first home, I moved all of my plants from our rental home over to this one. Of course, there were a few improvements which I left behind, but, for the most part, I dug up at least 100 plants with the help of a friend from Poland, family, and my husband. The neighbors later told me that they weren't sure if I was a homeowner or a landscaper. I still laugh about that to this day. When I think of all of the crazy things I have done, this was certainly one of the funniest.