Experience teaches you everything if you let it.

We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.

                     — Flannery O'Connor

Still gardening and cleaning up...to be continued.

 Planting these today. I just returned from my walk. Wow. I started at 6:30 and sweated the entire time. Humidity is rocking it this morning in the South. Feels like August weather. I did gain some distance and broke my walking record but it was work and next time I will carry water on me. I have to plant two flats of impatiens and one flat of sweet potato vines this morning. Then move and arrange the clay pots. Tomorrow it rains. I don't mind. We really need it. Two days. I'll be celebrating my Mother's Day with Ben in the rain, Saturday. Laughing. It won't stop us from shopping for some hardy hibiscus. We'll pause for dinner with Jack, Jamie, Pete, and Chris at Longhorn's. I couldn't think of a place to meet at noon but there.

Things I have accomplished. With Patsy's help, I pressure washed the deck, getting it ready for painting. Patsy pressure washed chairs and the concrete patio. Wow. Looks so good. She and I both cut and removed dead or faltering roses, plants, tree limbs, crepe myrtle messes from the front lawn. It's amazing how much we got done. Just amazing.

Happy Mother's Day 2022

I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.

                 — Langston Hughes

P.S. My mother did belong to the greatest generation of the 20th century. When I reflect on her life objectively, I don't know how she stayed sane. She was flawed but incredible. As we often say in our family, Mother was a force of Nature.

Things are happening everywhere.

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
                  

                                 ― Susan Sontag

The Girl with a Hoe.

 Serious gardeners have the best weapons. Seriously. (lol) This is my new garden hoe, made of recycled agricultural disc blades.  One guy said it was the Scottish claymore of weed killing, seven inches of welded steel. It's heavier than I like but the payoff is less work. It's sharp and designed to hit rock. Rogue brand. I am about to go to work. I just got back from my walk, a record breaking one according to my Apple watch. Amused. It made me think of the girl with the hoe, Jeanne Crain, from the film Leave Her To Heaven. The sister who loves to garden. Her sister is a sociopath murderer. Gene Tierney plays the part of Ellen. When Ellen realizes she's lost, she dies and from the grave implicates those who once loved her. Yes, I know, I watch too many old films. But this one is so good.

Donna Tartt's book has deeply affected me.

“Even if it meant that she had failed, she was glad. And if what she'd wanted had been impossible from the start, still there was a certain lonely comfort in the fact that she'd known it was impossible and had gone ahead and done it anyway.”

               — Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

Will we? Did we?

"The twentieth century proves that the victory of the ideals of justice and equality is always ephemeral, but, if you manage to safeguard the freedom, you can, however, start over ... do not despair, even in the most desperate situations. "

                — Leo Valiani

              Erring on the side of Hope

The world is unjust and much about it must be endured or maybe abandoned.

BUT SPIT AT IT IF YOU WANT TO!!!!

But do no harm.

Cordelia's Farewell by Edwin Austin Abbey

Shelley moved into Casa Magni today in 1822.

Casa Magni

Shelley's House. From a drawing. Lerici, Gulf of Spezia, Italy

April 30, 1822, Percy Shelley and family and friends took possession of house.

Escaping....

 Gardening is my escape. I disappear in work and simple pleasures. I don't think about anything. It's the only time that my mind is truly at rest. And I do feel happy there, weeding, planting flowers, getting dirty. Right now, at this moment, I have this mental image in my head, of a younger me, kneeling over a new flowerbed in a house I once lived in and I can almost recreate the feeling of it. I can see it. There are so many moments like that and they are always in gardens with me working. By myself. Most people don't take as much pleasure in weeding as I do. Weeding...

My "happy place" has always been in the garden.

And I know it's my escape.

The spiderwort is going wild, as planned.

 

Emma by Jane Austen is a novel I really like a lot.

By chance and one might say, luck, I read Emma by Jane Austen this last week. It was the one novel by Austen that I had not (really) read. I suppose I flipped through its pages several times and read passages, but not a deep read. Perhaps I thought it a straight comedy and was never in the mood for that. I hardly know or remember. Emma has left a deep impression on me, which may or may not have something to do with the Romantic Period or Percy Shelley or English gardens, I don’t know or care, but I have decided to put aside my previous reading plans and reread all of Jane Austen along with some biographies, letters, and other non-fiction materials. I am going to reread Richard Holmes’ biography of Shelley, too. And it’s spring and summer and I am thinking of gardens and flowers and paintings and the beauty of nature. If I had lived in England, I would have loved a cottage and a garden and country life. I have lived a country life. Emma is a very mature work by Austen, a novel with themes that explore self-reflection, self-awareness, and the how people can move from self-delusion to reality. It should be taught in senior year of high school where young women can discuss these themes and ask themselves questions. I’d love to teach it. There is a harshness to Austen that many overlook. She might have even been more radical than we normally think. No, she didn’t run off with a married poet like Mary Godwin but just maybe Austen had more psychological insights than the former authoress, perhaps because Mary Godwin Shelley was plagued by depression and abandonment issues. There is such clarity to Austen’s work. That was her gift. One just has to read closely.

Easter is about Hope.

Image: The Easter Bonnet ~ Anna Whelan Betts

My garden 2022

 This iris is an old fashioned two tone purple with an orange beard and came from my mother's garden. It was destroyed (after years of nurturing) by the water pipe replacement winter of 2020-2021. The loss was deep as it reminded me of both my mother and husband, both dead. 

And now I realize just how difficult it is going to be to replace this plant since this is an old fashioned Heritage plant. Mother and I had these in our gardens for years and I may not be able to replace the plant.  I do so feel this terrible loss, though I am not sure if it is for the plant or my mother or my husband or all three. Or am I lamenting the passage of Time and the loss of all things eventually. 

It is a beautiful iris. I want replace it. I am going to look carefully in May for any signs of smaller plants that may have been scattered across the lawn and flowerbeds by digging equipment. I do see a few of the white ones pushing out here and there. Maybe one of these survived. I nursed this one for years and it was so beautiful. I had no idea it was a heritage plant, but now looking back at my mother's garden, I should have known better. I've attempted to maintain the plants she gave me over the years and have been successful to a degree. But the iris was her favorite plant. She loved them so. She could not grow them in Greenville, the town we moved from years ago. It never got cold enough.

Speaking of cold, after the last two winters, I will never wish to live anywhere north of where I live in the entire world. If anything I wish to live south of where I live, closer to New Orleans. I need the sun. I need warmth. Winters ruin me.

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron.

It might surprise people to know that I suffer from Depression. I do not have Major Depressive Disorder but I do know what it is like to experience a major depressive disorder episode. Despite my smiles and good cheer, I tend to write about very dark themes. Loss. Abandonment. The perils and weight of Time. The stress of the past. Melancholy. Even betrayal and suicide or murder. Some of my characters are 'mad' as William Styron became in the summer of 1985. I have never read a book more palpable about depression than this one. Several times while reading it, I felt my body tense and I literally became anxious due to Styron's descriptions of his feelings. I was so depressed in high school after the death of a childhood friend that my teachers became concerned about me and I literally missed 100 days of school that year. Looking back, I felt very similar to what Styron felt but I never became suicidal. (One of the similar traits I possessed was that I did not sleep or talk much. I could not talk. I was disconnected.) Styron makes it clear that melancholia and hypochondria sound alike as words and tend to feel alike and are related emotionally, and I agree with him. Depression and Anxiety are so interconnected that sometimes it is difficult to tell one from the other. A lot of artists and writers suffer from Depression, though so do plumbers and electricians. We just don't hear about them when they commit suicide. Suicide is about pain. And all of this is probably rooted in one's childhood and concerns loss. Loss of what doesn't really matter as long as it is psychologically coupled. I take Prozac for my depression. Sometimes I go off it, but not often. Twenty years now. Depression is wily and sneaky. One is the midst of it before one knows it. Highly recommended read.

You are not a gadget

 Ben came by the house today and also had our lunch delivered. He stayed  (six) hours and we talked about everything, including Jaron Lanier's book. There was some tech jargon he explained to me, which helped in understanding how MIDI was locked in and what that really meant. Later we got into the values and devaluing of the arts. Just a note. Ben doesn't do social media though he does use the Internet for certain things. But social media has never interested him that much. This is my second read of Lanier's book, which I found so interesting and also kind of frightening. None of my children really do social media much. I began thinking about that and why. I have never really asked them in detail. None of them are on Twitter at all. Probably because of how they live. (?) But I'll have to think about it later. No answers really, just musing. I wanted to post this because I have a feeling I won't get back to the Internet this week. And by the time I come back, I'll be posting another book I am reading and an update on WIP.

I spent a lot of time outside today.

The sun was shining.

Small things. Beautiful things. It's been such a harsh winter.

Lanier, as we all know, is a genius and a very decent human being. He cares about creative people. This book was written over a decade ago and he saw the film industry as it is now, gone the way of the music industry. It all reminded me of the news on Twitter this week over the new four payout system in publishing. I remember when they began basketing royalties, and the three payout system was harsh. I think, in hindsight, I was lucky to have chosen the path I did. Lots of experience, timely checks, and less stress. 

But now I want to write a novel.

Oh, well....

An interesting photo of Picasso.

 Picasso with a cat. (I am looking for the photographer and will update.) Apparently, Picasso loved cats, painted cats, etc. So I may have to read to find out who took this and the date. And yes, I am a cat lady, as they say.

And I knew that I wanted you...

I remember you closing the shutters
And laying down by my side
And the light that was still slipping through
It was painting your body in stripes
I remember the trees summoned down
Like an archangel choir
And the ocean was all we could see
And I knew that I wanted you 

Local Natives

Silent lights, iris and mimosas, 1913, Henri Matisse

 Post-impressionism. 

Silent lights, iris and mimosas, 1913, Henri Matisse

This is my motto for 2022.

“There's no prayer like desire.” ― Tom Waits