Mettle

Discrepancies, Happy and Sad

Li-Young Lee

We’ve moved into a bigger house.
Now our voices wander among the rooms
calling, Where are you?

And what we can’t forget
of other houses confuses us
as we answer back and forth, Over here!

It’s a little like returning to the village
where you were born, the sad bewilderment
of discrepancies between
what you remember and what’s there.

No. It’s more like a memory of heaven.
Voices coming closer, voices moving away,

and what we thought we knew
about life on earth confounding us.

And then that question
from which all the other questions begin.

I attended a garden tour on Saturday with a friend. The owners created a beautiful home and garden over 36 years. 36 years! I know plenty of people live in one place for their entire lives, but 36 years seems incredibly long to me. I began to think through all the homes I have lived in over the years, and I have lived in more homes than most millennials have jobs these days. Like each vein on the leaf of the perennial Evans Begonia above photographed on the garden tour, each address marked a significant place and time in my life that has helped shape me into who I am today. 

Upon review, this list evokes not only a feeling of exhaustion but also of pride. One gains invaluable insight into human beings and human behavior when moving similar to that of travel. I see more commonalities and fundamentals among people. And, I see myself as more adaptable to change and confident in the face of challenges. Building new relationships takes great effort but our closest friendships move with us over time and space, too. Choosing a new home, choosing change, tests your mettle. 

Read on and you'll see what I mean:

1) Milwaukee Duplex of My Birth with Leopard Lamp and Seamstress Bust in the Attic

2) Childhood home: Brookfield, WI Ranch for the Entirety of My Schooling From Age 5 to 18

3) McCaffrey House Dorm Room in Sullivan Hall on the Lakeshore at UW-Madison Freshman Year

4) Another McCaffrey House Dorm Room at UW-Madison Sophomore Year

5) Studentensiedlung Dorm Room at Albert Ludwigs Universitaet in Freiburg, Germany for My Junior Year Abroad

6) First Floor of Mill Street Duplex with the "Stomper" Upstairs for Senior Year Back at UW-Madison

7) Cronkite Graduate Center Single Dorm Room Off of Brattle Row in Cambridge, MA for as I Worked to Earn my MEd at Harvard

8) Apartment in Pastel Colored Stucco Complex in Hollywood Florida for First Teaching Position

9) First Floor "Fourplex" in Wauwatosa, WI in Transition Year Before Return to Graduate School

10) Four Month Stint in the Basement of My Older Sister's House After My Roommate Moved Out to Get Married

11) Studio Apartment Back in Madison for More Graduate School

12) Second Floor of Duplex on Madison's Near West Side Owned by Friend's Family Whose Grandfather Was a Longtime Professor

13) Moved in With My Then Fiance/Soon Husband into a Mississippi River Boulevard Apartment with Art Deco Bathroom in St. Paul, MN

14) Second Floor Duplex on St. Clair Avenue Owned and Meticulously Maintained by Our 90 Year Old Landlord, Ciel Garry, Who Lived in the Basement

15) 1,100 Square Foot 1929 Bungalow on Stanford Avenue, Our First Home

16) Return to Harvard and Completely Renovated (Once Owned By a Woman Who Had 200 Cats) Second Floor Duplex on Sycamore Street in Watertown, MA

17) First Floor Duplex on Hillcrest Circle in Watertown, MA

18) My Husband's First Faculty Job and Our Second Home on Nimitz Avenue in State College, PA

19) Third Home on Upland Road in Ithaca, NY as We Moved onto Cornell

20) Fourth Home Called "NOLD" on Highland Road in Ithaca, NY

21) Wayside Place Rental Home in Transition to Charlottesville, VA

22) Fifth Home, Our Current Brick Colonial Called "Nara"

I want to say this is our "forever" house, but who can predict the future? Upon review, the majority of my moves were dictated by academia and the partnership my husband and I formed. From the beginning, he and I shared a vision for the future and a life plan which remains steadfast. However, I think some of the terms are evolving as the time to enjoy life a bit more in the present may be at hand and the desire to stay connected to our girls as they themselves move on in life will be a priority as well. For now, we are settling in and growing new roots with mettle.

Gardening

And that was—is—the miraculous power of gardening: it invites plans and ambitions, creativity, expectation. Next year I will try celeriac. And that new pale blue sweet pea. Would Iris stylosa to just here? And what about sweet woodruff in that shady corner? Gardening defies time; you labor today in the interests of tomorrow; you think in seasons to come, cutting down the border this autumn but with next spring in your mind’s eye.  (33) Dancing Fish and Ammonites by Penelope Lively

After two years of transition, my family and I are finally settled in Charlottesville, a brick colonial so appropriate for Jefferson's hometown and its love affair with red bricks. No surprise as the soil is very fertile and tinted red as well. We live less than 3 miles to the university, shopping, and the high school and sit on a nearly 5 acre nook with woods and creek. Although it took some time to find this gem, I am so grateful for our good fortune and patience.

July is bringing me time to breath in the quiet, to think about the future, and to garden. I spend an hour here and there gardening each day now. I begin a bit late this growing season as the summer heat is already in full force, yet my efforts will bear fruition as I get to know the property, begin to construct a plan for the future, and plant selectively. I forgot that few things brings me as much joy as working the soil.

Gardening immerses you in nature no matter how big or small your efforts. And, nature abounds at "Nara," the name we have given our new home. Deer roam the area here in small herds and hearken back to Nara Park in Japan and its deer, a national treasure considered messengers of the gods in Shinto. I love to think the same of our deer, approaching them with reverence rather than as an adversary as I am prone to do.

Toads, turtles, squirrels, woodpeckers, raccoons, and numerous songbirds frequent our neighborhood. Last week, a black bear's visit caused quite a commotion and places me on high alert when I am out gardening. The visitor took down a neighbor's bird seed feeder and enjoyed a late night snack. I was emboldened to not feed the wildlife around me anymore -- no feeder for us at Nara -- rather to plant in ways that provides habitat and supports all the living things around me.

I have begun weeding and trimming. I planted a small bed of French marigold seeds I saved from Ithaca right next to another small bed of lavender. I love the intense color of purple when lavender is grouped together. And, their smell brings me back to one of my earliest memories, my only memory of my mother's mother. I must have been around three years old, and we shopped together at a neighborhood, corner store in Milwaukee's long gone German community. I chose a small, green, rounded bottom glass bottle of perfume with a green, round plastic top. I remember carrying this rare and precious gift with great care. The scent must have been heavily lavender as I always return to the long lost bottle in my mind to this day when I breathe in lavender.

My new neighbor shared that the deer overlook the pumpkins and cucumbers in her garden. So, I planted a few pumpkin pie seeds in the midst of the milkweed seeds I had scattered in hopes that one day I might be able to attract and feed some monarch butterflies. Nothing surprised me more than to see the pumpkin seedlings emerge from the soil in less than a week. I am not sure why, but the life source of a seed still amazes me.

I remember planting seeds (likely pumpkins or beans or peas) in a paper cup in Kindergarten. I was attentive and nurturing and engaged even then. Maybe, my love of gardening returns me to the joys of childhood. I witnessed such joy the other evening at my daughter's swim meet when a small girl walked round and round in astonishment. "Look! It's a firefly!" Pause. "Look! It's a firefly!" Her voice was sweet and soft and breathy. She was beholding with great wonder. May we all do the same.