The Promise of A Seed Catalog

            It’s that time of year again – it’s time to plan the garden!  Several weeks ago I ordered catalogs.  I couldn’t wait any longer.  The snow keeps piling up and there’s something about a vegetable and flower catalog that brings hope before you even open the cover.  The bright photos of peas, carrots and tomatoes evoke mornings of patient weeding, with a break on the porch and the transplanting of flowers along the house or in containers in the afternoon.  I think of ice tea and porches and waving to neighbors and listening to the neighborhood children ride their bicycles up and down the block.  A seed catalog brings back my sanity at a time when I think I could forget that the sun will ever warm me again.

            I love gardening.  I am by no means an expert.  No, I am a trial and error girl and I try to remember my Dad’s garden.  He died about a year after I decided I actually didn’t mind weeding when it was MY garden and not a chore but a means of escape from being anything – a mom, a lover, an employee, a bread winner, a daughter, a friend.  I had so looked forward to discussing the garden with him, possibly trading plants or vegetables.  But then he was gone. 

             I garden now still as an escape, but I also feel my Dad with me then.  There are times when I’m out in the soil, with the sun beating down on me, and I wonder about something as my mind opens, whether it has to do with gardening or some other conundrum, and I think that I’ll give him a call when I’m done.  Not a second later I realize with a twist in my gut that I can’t.  It’s been nearly fifteen years and I still can’t believe he’s gone.  And I can’t believe he left before I could be a full-fledged adult child, so that we could talk and understand each other on the same level.  I was an adult when he passed away, but I was still in the stage where my parent’s really had no clue about what they were talking about when it came to me and my life.  

            I do talk to my Dad out there, and I believe he listens to me.  I believe he would be proud of the way I’ve taught myself and others around me in regards to plants and sunlight and where to plant and near what other veggies or flowers. 

            I lost my Dad on the first day of spring, 2000.  Every year since, sometime in May, I get him back for the summer.  I know he would love our garlic, that we planted it at all and just tried it out would have pleased him.  Cooking with it would have given him great satisfaction.  I like to think, that if he was alive today, that he would be satisfied with me, too.  I like to think my gardening would have made him proud and that he would come over just to walk in my little gardens and sit on the porch and watch my birds and listen to the water falling in our homemade pond.  I like to think our talks would start with seeds, move on to soil and plants and then grow a little deeper.  I like to think that just as my garden grows, so would my knowledge of my dad and he of me. 

            I look forward to receiving the seed catalogs every year.  They promise more than just beautiful vegetables and flowers.  They promise hope and hard work, ideas and memories; and for me especially, they promise that my father will be with me once again, guiding me through my hands and heart.

            I can’t wait dad.  I can’t wait.

Twenty-Seven Years

Twenty-seven years.  Twenty-seven years ago I woke up to the news that you were gone.  I know I’m not the only one who remembers, but I know that I only remember my version.  I know that others heard differently, maybe through a phone call, or a police visit.  I heard about it on the radio and when I yelled no, that it couldn’t be you, my family told me I was dreaming.  If only I had been.  Maybe the memories of you are made sweeter because you left us so young with everything ahead of you.  I know that we would have drifted apart, that we already had started to in some ways.  We were just kids then, as you will always be. 

I wonder who you would be today.  I have a feeling you would have stayed here and not moved on.  I can see you hanging out at the garage with the guys and running into you every once in a while at the river.  Would we even talk?  I know there are others that played, that stayed, and we never talk.  They don’t seem to have grown at all, and that would be my worry.  Would I even like you now had you never died?  Would you still be the jock living your high school glory, over and over and over?  Would you still believe that every girl wanted you?  Because they wouldn’t.  I still remember how I felt about 40-something guys when I was seventeen.  They were gross.  But guys of a certain age don’t think that way.  They still think that they are God’s gift and look at those girls like they are giving them a compliment, not the heebie jeebies. 

I say these things because I don’t want you to be a saint.  I also say them because this is the first time I realized that I might know who you would be and it almost makes me glad you are gone.

You were an alcoholic; you just didn’t realize it yet.  We all had an idea of it, but you were so much fun, up to that point where you wanted to fight.  And it was such a hairpin point too.  You never knew when it would happen but knew immediately when it did and it didn’t seem to bother you that you took everyone along for the ride.  I remember sitting in the backseat wondering if we would survive to see the morning.  Then, one day, you didn’t.

I took the lesson to heart.  For a couple years I refused to ride with anyone drunk, tried to pry keys out of their hands, talked to them about you so they wouldn’t do the same thing.  I didn’t stop partying.  I was just more careful, for a while, anyway. 

Then there were the nights I drove home holding one hand over an eye, trying to see straight.  Seeing shooting stars and believing they were deceased friends and family guiding me home.  Maybe they were – who knows?  I like to think so, because I saw more shooting stars at 2:30 in the morning than I have at any other time in my life.  I took on the attitude that you only live once, “Only the Good Die Young” became my song, I felt a connection to James Dean, and my life became one fast and crazy and sad place to be.  Sleeping with anyone I felt a strong connection to was my way to keep them alive, since I had refused to sleep with you. 

The ghost of you was always there in those years right after you died, influencing my decisions.  I hadn’t realized it until now.  Eventually you have faded from our minds.  We remember you fondly as a good guy, the ladies’ man, the good son, brother, friend.  Your name comes up at your family member’s funerals, maybe at the milestone of a niece or nephew, looking at school pictures, or just sitting around reminiscing.  It’s not awkward anymore, although it is still sad.  When I hear ACDC or George Thorogood I still smile and think that you’re the subject to “Bad to the Bone”.  I will always remember our secret late nights by the river, parked in your car and making out, never going any farther than kisses.  Our dream of a little house with a white picket fence became a reality without you.

 

Needless to say, I still miss you.

 

Dreams

   Dreams.  Ever have a dream that seemed so real that years later you still remember it?  I have several that are so vivid that I’ve never had them twice, never had to.  And what about those dreams where you need to do something, you try and try, but it just never seems to happen?  Do you have those too?

   I had one dream about George Clooney.  No, it wasn’t ex-rated.  I’m not sure if it was before or after his sexiest man alive awards or not.  I met him, he was nice and we spent a day together.  Sightseeing and hanging out.  The dream ended on a wet street, late in the evening, where we embraced and said good bye.  It was then that I realized he is a really great guy.  Very down to earth.  I remind my boyfriend of that dream every once in a while.  I don’t tell him the details, just that I met Mr. Clooney and that he really is a nice guy, and he just shakes his head and tells me I’m crazy.

   But what if we do meet people in our unconscious state?  Who’s to say George didn’t share that very same dream and woke up thinking, ‘Wow, some dream, that girl was really nice. I wonder if she is in real life’?  Of course it probably wouldn’t stick in his mind like it has stuck in mine, him being a celebrity and me being a nobody, but it could.

   After my dad died I had a dream that we were picnicking on a cliff, high above anywhere.  When I think of it I picture mountain scenes from The Sound of Music.  My dad was there, and my daughter and me and probably my sister and mother.  I started to fall off the cliff and my dad tried to grab my hand, but I slipped through.  I woke up of course, disproving the myth that if you fall off a cliff in your dreams then you die, but it bothered me for a long time that my dad couldn’t save me.  Of course, that wasn’t up to him, he tried.  I really needed to grab a branch on the way down and pull myself up.  I eventually did, but not in my dream.

   When I was a kid I dreamt of a fight.  It was the same dream over and over.  I never knew who I was fighting but every time I went to punch or kick someone a force field would hold me back and I couldn’t move.  I don’t know how many times I went through this.  I talked to my friends and asked them if they ever had dreams like that but none ever admitted to it.  One night I woke up as I kicked the wall.  I had broken the force field.  I had kicked my unknown assailant.  I never had that dream again.  Later on, when I was a little older but not much, there was a mean girl on the bus who would pick on me and my little brother mercilessly.  One afternoon she sat behind us and flicked her finger at the back of his ear.  I kept telling her to stop but she wouldn’t.  I turned around and stood up, she did too.  I’m pretty sure she asked me if I was going to hit her and I’m pretty sure I said I was.  Then I did.  Square in the face.  I don’t know if I punched her eye, nose or mouth.  I know there was a lot of hair pulling and kicking and swearing, and all I can liken it to is Ralphie’s fight in A Christmas Story.  I got off the bus and cried to my mom.  I thought the mean girl’s family was going to kill me.  In the end, nothing happened except that that mean girl NEVER bothered me or my brother again.  Ever.  I never hit someone again either.  But I think that dream prepared me for it in some way.

   When I was a teenager I attended a wrestling event at a friend’s school.  I seriously think there were people like Macho Man Randy Savage there.  It was a fundraiser and I just happened to be visiting there at the time so I got to go.  As we were sitting in the bleachers I looked around and told my friend that there was going to be a fire.  Around half time the fire alarm went off and the school was evacuated.  A popcorn machine had caught on fire.  Everything was under control and once it was taken care of everyone was let back in to continue the show.  My friend asked me how I knew.  I told her I had had a dream about it.

   I love my dreams, I look forward to them.  I’ve only woken up crying or scared very rarely.  Thank God those dreams only stay with me for a little.  I always think they won’t go away, but they do.  I think sometimes dreams try to tell us something, either about ourselves or about others.  They rationalize our fears or try to explain them and help us overcome them. It is our mind trying to make us pay attention when we’re most relaxed and receptive.

   What about your dreams?  What do you dream about?  Have your dreams helped you?  Have you seen things you never thought you would?  Tell me!  I’d love to hear about them!