Roots

Earlier in the summer, part of our backyard used to look like this (on the right). The previous owners had planted two redwood trees in a very small space where three yards (and houses) come together.

The redwoods were beautiful and majestic as they always are. They were very tall too. And their branches sometimes broke off in the wind. Other redwood trees in neighborhood yards have blown over, smashing the gutters off of one house... and the roots were starting to push up our neighbor's yards.

So reluctantly (and I mean very reluctantly) we made the decision to go ahead and take them down.





Its pretty obvious why the previous owners wanted to put something there.


After spending a month or two living with the empty space and thinking about what comes next, we went out and bought a lemon tree.

I have never bought and planted a tree before.

Its such a spiritual thing - to accept care for something that I may not see the end of. Someone else will be harvesting lemons from this little stick of a thing maybe 20 years from now. (if global warming doesn't mess it all up)

Its beautiful. The person who helped us pick out the tree wanted to know what we were going to name it. (I'm thinking Zoe) It has that kind of life energy about it. I'm happy and I'm in awe when I look at it.


Since we had the shovels out - I took another big step and planted the rose bush and the geranium that I had in pots when I lived in San Anselmo. (they are both in the center of the photo - I'd highlight them but I don't have the software to muck around with that at the moment)

One day a few years ago I was restless for a rose bush. I used to have several back in the old live before the big change. Maybe the big concrete Bell parking lot was getting to me. Maybe part of my restoration was claiming a rose bush - in a container ready to be a vagabond while the time of just-passing-through lasted - but still a living thing that prefers to put down roots in soil rather than journey off over the horizon. As the years went by, the poor rose bush did its best to put on leaves and flowers but it was clearly growing more and more distressed in its bound up condition.

So, it went into the front garden along with the geraniums I inherited from Catharine Cory. Now their future is bound up with the soil and the weather and the bugs of this particular place. The day will come when I will leave them behind but its not going to be for a few years yet. I don't think of them as things I own so much as I consider them my companions of the past few years.

I've hit the end of the line in obviously ordainable prospects. I either leave the area or wait or do something else or find a non-obvious ordainable path. Its not such a bad life here. I am still free to try and pull together a book proposal and I am free to cook and plant and tend and think and sing. But I am worried. How do I face my CPM? When do I have to say, "stop messing with me, I'm just waiting all our time here?"

The lemon tree came with green lemons. Its one of the ways we know its healthy when we buy it. They will slowly turn yellow and be harvestable sometime in early spring. There is still a blossom on the tree. It smells very nice - and its small and its beautiful. It may be out of time to become a fruit, but still it is there. We need to keep the tree and its fruit safe from cold snaps. Our tree guide recommended using a string of Christmas tree lights because it generates just enough heat in the darkness to keep the lemons-to-be warm in the dark winter months. What a perfect metaphor for Advent, for the coming season in our lives, for this season in my life.