9/22/24
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny that my life is a fantastic fairy tale. Of course another less balmy narrative could start up at any moment (and perhaps already has, since I live this fairy tale life in the 100% real world), so I should take this breather to tell it thus.
Once upon a time, when I was heartbreakingly young, I ran headlong into a villain. My life to that point had not included any men of his type, and I was relatively defenseless. Through shameless manipulation he lured me from my studies, selfishly misused my talents, and sucked very nearly every bit of life out of me to fuel his own pursuits. It was a classic “misuse the muse” story of the Sandman #17 version.
One of the places that gave me life through those terrible years was my garden. On the grounds of a house built in 1847, with the help of a professional gardener for advice and a small library of reference books for raw knowledge, he and I built a garden. It would be wrong of me to suggest that it was only my garden, solely, but it was absolutely mine, a bit of land that absorbed my blood and sweat and tears, as gardens do.
The ensorcelment lasted for over six years, but I eventually broke the spell, and found what was left of myself, and made my escape. The way I know this to be a fairy tale? Who but a fairy tale villain would behave this despicably: He refused to let me take anything from my garden. NOTHING. No cuttings or transplants, no seeds or bulbs, nada. It takes real effort to be so stingy about a garden — it is a perversion of gardening, in my opinion, which is fitting, given the perpetrator.
Because my life is, at least in some tellings, a fairy tale, his attempt to keep me from my garden backfired. I mean, he clearly succeeded on some metrics: I did not take, and do not have, anything whatsoever from that garden that is tangible. And his villainy really did hit me where it hurt, one of his superpowers.
However, because fairy tale, very nearly every person who has been fool enough to cross me, who has had the temerity to keep things from me (gardens, knowledge, companionship with others, even my home) has been thwarted spectacularly: In this case, gardens, riches started pouring in immediately. The friends who took me in let me tend an herb garden out front; another friend shared her community garden plot and taught me about vegetable gardening. My psychiatrist gave me a start from his exquisite jade plant. And the first official act F. and I set our names to, when I landed in NYC: A membership to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The message was unmistakable. That guy would deny you even a fraction of his ⅖ of an acre? Here, have 52.
It wasn’t just that first year, though. My life has been filled with gardens and plants shared over the years. This morning, fall equinox, walking around my garden gathering a bouquet to make art with got me onto this topic.
This little bouquet has three kinds of sage — a purple one I found on the property, a red one that was a gift from a friend, and an electric blue sage I bought at Berkeley Hort — I’ve seen hummingbirds drink from all three in my yard. The marigold I grew from seeds I saved from last year’s ofrenda*. Two kinds of California poppies (I have 5 or 6 in my front yard, in a postage stamp-sized meadow). Pink and white and orange cosmos, all from seeds I saved from last year. Mint and purple basil, flowering (I love seeing their square stems and knowing they are kin). The seed stalks are Clarkia, and a native local abutilon, and self-heal, which showed up in my yard after I started telling folks that my abuelita was a curandera, and which I just discovered is also a Lamiaceae cousin.
The bouquet, picked this morning, embodies this day, this place. I’ve arranged it in a dark blue Heath Ceramics bud vase, and I love that the pottery is also local. I’ve already made a bunch of art documenting it (photos, shadow tracings) and I’ll make more (watercolors, pen and ink drawings). I could even write a multi-book series, Transcendence of Things Past, about this particular bouquet and how it comes to be that I live alongside these plants, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already exceeded the “good bits version” length for this morality tale, so I should wrap it up.
My garden now is made of other gardens, and it makes yet more — I share my seeds and starts and cuttings. I choose to live in an abundant world. The villain of our story today stole some particular plants and made a small patch of ground off-limits to me, and by doing so showed me the door to every other garden and pointed me towards finding Real Home (which was inside me all along). It’s hard to even be mad — he chose to be small and mean, and I have chosen to be vast and kind, its own intrinsic reward in every present moment.
Honestly, I hope that garden continues to be thriving. May it grow lush and be a constant reminder of what was squandered by his villainy.
As for myself, your loving narrator, well. I don’t know about living happily ever after. That’s only in real fairy tales, and I am decidedly human and mortal. But I have the capacity for joy and awe and transcendence at any moment, the love of a small army of friends and lovers and relatives, and many gardens full of endless treasures and knowledge where I am welcome.
That’s a fairy tale reward if I ever heard one! It’s my intention to appreciate every drop and crumb of this good fortune, and to find ways to use it to benefit others.
Living well turns out to be the legit best revenge. People who don’t treat me well don’t get to stay in this ongoing story. That’s it. Seems like just punishment to me! And all I have to do to enact it is to let old, bad stories go. I resign my role as the implementor of past villains’ dastardly schemes!
*NB: Refusing a personal invitation to see someone’s ofrenda is rude.
[Post title from the fine Taylor Swift song, “Karma” 🔥]