In early October, I received a care package from three amazing Midwestern aunts. They were in the process of selling my grandmother’s house but were determined to keep the amazing peony garden the family had lovingly created and painstakingly tended for at least 45 years at one home and possibly another 60 years before that. (Family legend has it that the original peony bulbs came to America with my great-grandparents when they immigrated from Russia in 1907.)
So my aunts and their families dug up all the peony bulbs and distributed them to me, my siblings, and our cousins across the States and Canada (26 of us in all).
If you are a gardener, this might sound like a piece of cake, an easy and sentimental opportunity to add some color to your yard. But, unfortunately, I’m no gardener. I love flowers, but dirt, weeds, and worms are not for me. So you can imagine the pressure that came in that little brown box filled with bulbs to be lovingly planted and painstakingly tended, and of course photographed and shared family-wide.
To add to the pressure, my aunts also sent me my brother’s bulbs. He lives in San Diego, which is apparently the perfect climate for humans but not for peonies. So, I was to plant and nurture his flowers along with mine and then give the bulbs to him if he ever moves somewhere that suits them.
Along with the bulbs, which were each wrapped in tissue paper the color of their flower, there was a page of typewritten instructions that would intimidate Martha Stewart.
First we had to find a place to plant – per the instructions, “a sunny, well-drained location that can have some shade but at least a half-day of sunshine, that is not near large trees or shrubs where they would be robbed of light, moisture, and plant food.”
I found a place that met at least some of the criteria, and began to clear away the scrub that had overgrown the area, feeling a sense of accomplishment with each tug.
I noticed a vine had begun to grow upwards and tangle itself into a pine tree and gave a pull. It didn’t come down. I stepped away from the tree and looked up. Guess I misjudged a bit. Turns out the vine had grown a lot higher than I thought, and was actually peeking out of the top of the 100-foot pine tree. What’s more, it was holding several dead branches in place (probably since March’s big storm), making any further tugging potentially fatal. So, I declared my garden cleared.
Then my husband joined me for what I thought would be twenty minutes of bulb-planting, until we read the first direction: “For each plant dig a hole a minimum 18 inches deep and at least the same diameter. Depth of planting is very important,” the paper screamed at me. When he took the spade to our hard dusty rocky soil, I instantly knew that 18 inches was going to take a very long time.
We knew we needed a better tool, but we couldn’t find our pick axe. Which got me thinking, “How does one lose a pick axe, and should I be concerned?” He got down a few inches before declaring defeat. Unable to deal with an unfinished project, I stayed out for a short while longer but only managed to unearth a few more rocks. I convinced myself I made it six inches, but it was probably three. I figured at least I could use the rocks to make quite a nice border if the garden ever got planted.
So I went inside, and the bulbs sat on my porch for another six weeks. Each day I stepped past them, a reminder of my family duty unmet. I asked for help, but got only sympathy, no tools. Making it worse was the stream of emails from cousins and siblings with stories of their successful plantings. Soon I was having nightmares about giant peonies across America laughing at me.
Finally it dawned on me to call a friend who has everything, and yes, he had a pick axe, and a post-hole digger by the way. That night, my husband chopped up the soil (luckily not attracting too much attention wielding a pick axe in the dark – which again, creates a bit of uneasiness as to where ours might be), and the next day I had that twenty-minute bulb-planting experience. Well, actually thirty minutes if you include the time I spent replanting previously-planted bulbs that had been unearthed by a man wielding a pick axe in the dark.
Will they grow? It’s anyone’s guess. There are still a lot of care instructions to follow (or forget)before they reach their full potential. But for Thanksgiving this year I was just grateful I got those things in the ground before I had to face my family at the table!
Friday, December 3, 2010
So Soon Forgotten
When I saw that the band They Might Be Giants was performing nearby this fall, I couldn’t have been more excited. A few years ago, while his four-year-old peers were listening to Laurie Berkner and watching Bob the Builder, my son was listening to and watching TMBG and their quirky kids CD/DVD “Here Come the ABC’s.” His love of letters and numbers was further reinforced via their follow-up album “Here Come the 123s” which played on our media players for months.
So, you can imagine my surprise when my now eight-year old son shrugged with indifference after I told him about the concert. “OK,” he said, always game for a show, but clearly not recalling the music at all. So maybe he forgot the tunes, but I thought the television theme songs would surely jolt his memories. “They sang the Higglytown Heroes theme,” I said, referring to a Disney show we watched daily for probably two years. “What are the Higglytown Heroes?” he asked. After I managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, I stammered, “You don’t remember Higglytown Heroes???”, then started listing the other shows that we watched and visited online regularly. “Jojo’s Circus?” “Bear in the Big Blue House?” “Stanley?” He looked at me blankly, and I think I felt my heart break, just a little bit.
Later, as I listened to him complain about having to watch a Barney video with his baby sister yet again, I had to chime in. “Do you know how many times I watched the same video with you again and again?” I asked. “Do you know you would make me read all the ABC books in the library when we went? Every one. Every time we went! We would be there for hours!” He thought this was hilarious (both the story and my hysteria in telling it), but he didn’t remember.
How can it be that he doesn’t remember these central moments that dominated his short life? Sure, I don’t remember much of anything from my early childhood either, but he is still in his early childhood. We spent hours, weeks, months, years watching these shows, playing the related online games, reading the books, listening to the CDs, watching the DVDs! All that time and energy spent in what I thought were bonding exercises with my son. Was it all for nothing? Do these moments get tossed in the giveaway pile along with all the other toys he loved for a few months then completely forgot about?
Well, probably not. Or not quite. Somehow, I have to believe that when we do engage in sufficient quality time with our children, they grow up feeling nurtured, secure, encouraged, and loved, even if they don’t remember all the details. (Perhaps that explains why a certain tune or scent or image can make us smile even when we can’t identify it.)
Still, I’ve been a little melancholy since this recent exchange with my son. You see, my daughter is six years younger than her brother, and I now realize that her infatuation with Elmo, Mickey Mouse, and the rest will soon be forgotten, and all we will have to show for it is some photos from Sesame Place and a Minnie Mouse Halloween costume. I wish I didn’t know this so that I could remain blissfully focused on indulging her excitement, just as I did for my son. But instead I have found myself tearing up a bit when I watch her sing and dance along to her favorites with that innocent surprise and excitement that toddlers express even on their one-hundredth viewing (“There’s Barney!” she cries, each time the DVD starts) . I know it doesn’t last long.
As for my son, TMBG won him over again. He thought the concert was great, even though he had his mom shouting “Do you remember this one?!” in his face every time an old favorite was featured. No, he didn’t remember the songs, but they shot confetti into the audience more than once and he thought that was just awesome. In fact, he filled my purse with handfuls of the shredded paper to bring home so he won’t forget.
So, you can imagine my surprise when my now eight-year old son shrugged with indifference after I told him about the concert. “OK,” he said, always game for a show, but clearly not recalling the music at all. So maybe he forgot the tunes, but I thought the television theme songs would surely jolt his memories. “They sang the Higglytown Heroes theme,” I said, referring to a Disney show we watched daily for probably two years. “What are the Higglytown Heroes?” he asked. After I managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, I stammered, “You don’t remember Higglytown Heroes???”, then started listing the other shows that we watched and visited online regularly. “Jojo’s Circus?” “Bear in the Big Blue House?” “Stanley?” He looked at me blankly, and I think I felt my heart break, just a little bit.
Later, as I listened to him complain about having to watch a Barney video with his baby sister yet again, I had to chime in. “Do you know how many times I watched the same video with you again and again?” I asked. “Do you know you would make me read all the ABC books in the library when we went? Every one. Every time we went! We would be there for hours!” He thought this was hilarious (both the story and my hysteria in telling it), but he didn’t remember.
How can it be that he doesn’t remember these central moments that dominated his short life? Sure, I don’t remember much of anything from my early childhood either, but he is still in his early childhood. We spent hours, weeks, months, years watching these shows, playing the related online games, reading the books, listening to the CDs, watching the DVDs! All that time and energy spent in what I thought were bonding exercises with my son. Was it all for nothing? Do these moments get tossed in the giveaway pile along with all the other toys he loved for a few months then completely forgot about?
Well, probably not. Or not quite. Somehow, I have to believe that when we do engage in sufficient quality time with our children, they grow up feeling nurtured, secure, encouraged, and loved, even if they don’t remember all the details. (Perhaps that explains why a certain tune or scent or image can make us smile even when we can’t identify it.)
Still, I’ve been a little melancholy since this recent exchange with my son. You see, my daughter is six years younger than her brother, and I now realize that her infatuation with Elmo, Mickey Mouse, and the rest will soon be forgotten, and all we will have to show for it is some photos from Sesame Place and a Minnie Mouse Halloween costume. I wish I didn’t know this so that I could remain blissfully focused on indulging her excitement, just as I did for my son. But instead I have found myself tearing up a bit when I watch her sing and dance along to her favorites with that innocent surprise and excitement that toddlers express even on their one-hundredth viewing (“There’s Barney!” she cries, each time the DVD starts) . I know it doesn’t last long.
As for my son, TMBG won him over again. He thought the concert was great, even though he had his mom shouting “Do you remember this one?!” in his face every time an old favorite was featured. No, he didn’t remember the songs, but they shot confetti into the audience more than once and he thought that was just awesome. In fact, he filled my purse with handfuls of the shredded paper to bring home so he won’t forget.
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