KUKKA - A column published in the blue ribbon news

I had lunch with a dear friend the other day. 

I’ve been kind of absent lately. I know some of y’all have missed me, you’ve told me so. Some weeks the words seem to well up and pour out. Sometimes, as is happening now, the words are hard to come by. 

At lunch, my friend said “I’ve been missing you. I keep looking for my messages from Sally.”

I had thought not to write about this. I tend to be ashamed of this condition. But there is a handwritten quote to myself on my desk “Write the truest sentences that you can. – Ernest Hemmingway” 

I am in a difficult season right now. I hope the clouds clear soon. Today the sky is clearest blue and cool morning air reminds me that true autumn is on the way. Nonetheless, even with the hopes that spring from deep in my heart, I am struggling with depression these past weeks, a lifeless feeling of despondence. 

So many of us experience depression. Some experience it in the forefront for years; for others, it can be episodic thing rearing its ugly head in response to circumstances. I have taken an anti-depressant medication for years, right along with my blood pressure med and the miracle pill that keeps colitis at bay. Nonetheless, recently a combo of life stuff left me wide open for attack. Life is good, but circumstances come blasting in unexpectedly. Events of which I have little control, piled atop normal worries, bring on a tinge of anxious feelings. The worries are stuffed and BAM!  More worries blast in and blow a hole in the fortress. 

I start thinking I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t write anymore. I don’t particularly want to play anymore; I start isolating myself. As an introvert, I most certainly need days alone to clear the jungle of too much activity, to be in the peace of home’s comfort and dwell in quietude. But isolation day upon day is not good for me. I must poke myself, or allow someone else to poke me and haul me back out. These past seven days have been a much better week than I’ve had for several. I’ve been with my people. I reached out to pals I hadn’t seen in a while. And hugs. Human touch is the bomb diggity. 

It’s hard for folks to understand, if they have never experienced depression. Life for me is pretty good. Depression doesn’t care if life is smooth or if I’m stumbling. It just leeches onto me, knowing where I am most susceptible, burrows into my deep, tender places and thrusts me low.

The hardest thing is getting in touch with myself and admitting that something is wrong, realizing I’ve been sliding downward. It’s tough to remember it’s not my fault, this is not a shortcoming. I find it difficult to admit the darkness to the people that I love the most. To show that I am vulnerable. Because I’m the one on top of things, one who handles things, one who gets through everything. There are some things I can’t get through on my own, depression is one of them. 

I pretty much must whack myself upside the head to remember that I need to reach out and get sustenance from the helpers. My friend and I talked about it at lunch. They poured out their recent struggle, and I shared some of my own. Human connection is the balm that begets healing over the raw places. 

To my helpers in this recent struggle, y’all have my love, and my loyalty. Big love to my eldest son. Overcoming depression and mental challenges are the everyday of his life. He perseveres rather than taking an easier way out. He shows me how to walk the path. We had lunch not long ago, and he encouraged me to call my doctor and check back in. 

A friend dropped me a note this past week that reached me in my deepest core. She wrote these words; touching my raw places and giving the world to me: “I am not surprised that things are piling up and there is little energy to get to them. Your heart is heavy. This may be a time to lay all things down for a while. Let your spirit rest…I will be here when the time is more open for you.” This is Grace. I will tell my friend that her words began the turn around. 

I don’t want my dear pal to miss another message from me, I’m going to send this out. It may not be the best thing I’ve ever written, but you know it is from my heart, and the truest words I can write. I’m so thankful for each of you. I hope you know I’m talking to you. 

If you are feeling depression, I hope you find a way to open a keyhole and allow the helpers in. Seek the places to pour your heart and keep yourself open to hold wide your arms when someone else needs to pour their heart out.

Find the souls that love you and let them build you up, smooth balm on the sore places. Laugh as much as you can. Hugs are incredible healers. 

Ask for prayers. I’m asking for yours.

And always, give Grace. 

Reprinted from Blue Ribbon News 

09 September 2024

The B.O.B. and I were at a local garden center to get a bag of rock last evening. A woman was perusing the multitudes of varying types of bags of soil, with dazed confusion in her eyes. She approached us and asked my husband, “Sir, can you give me some advice on soil?” Of course, my husband said “You need to talk to my wife. She’s the pro.” He wandered off to locate a flatbed cart and she and I talked soil. I looked at the bags she had piled into a cart, asked a few questions to determine what she was going to use it for; and advised that it should work just fine and some Bermuda seed on top would resolve her snafu in no time. I’m ever open to sharing whatever bit of gardening experience I have with others. 

This morning, I was thinking about the garden. Well, yes. I think about the garden every morning. Rephrase: This morning, I was pondering about where my gardening passion roots from. 

My style comes from my mom. The way I dress myself and my home, are reflections of Mom. While I did not develop an exact replica of her particular panache, my style sense is Mom with variations. Her home always had elegance that was perfectly comfortable. 

My ways of housekeeping are straight from Mom’s handbook. It’s evident in small things - hand towels hung nicely. A wastebasket is fine on its own no plastic grocery bag for a liner. The kitchen trash can is tucked away in a cupboard (for this, a paper grocery bag was acceptable for lining; I have converted to a plastic kitchen bag.) Mom did not have a good sense of organization or maybe she was savvy and pretended; because from my preteen years, I was the kitchen cupboards organizer. Even after I married, she would ask me to come organize her pantry. 

Couch pillows are plumped up after sitting, not left squashed and flattened. Coasters are used under drinks. Beds are made. Period. I make the bed every day. (Except occasionally on a Sunday we will have “half make” day; meaning the sheets and blanket are pulled up and smoothed, pillows plumped, and coverlet or quilt folded at the bottom. Just in case I decide to indulge in a Sunday nap.)  There is no point in creating a pretty bedroom with inviting bedding, if what you see when entering a room is a big ol’ mess of sheets and blanket on the bed. 

When windexing (the word Windex was used in our house as a verb) the windows, wash up and down, no swirling. However, looking at the state of my unwashed windows, perhaps we ought to skip over appropriate stroke methods and discuss regularity. 

Throw rugs must be shaken, not vacuumed. I sneakily fought against this rule as the child-cleaning helper, and it always came back to bite me when the inspector walked through. Now I’ll admit, this one is true; excepting my Persian type rugs which are quite large. I could easily suffocate attempting to shake one, much less picking one up. Those get a gentle vacuuming. 

Draperies hanging correctly is a biggie. Ensure when purchasing or making curtains to allow enough fabric for gathering across, never pulled flat across a window. That’s tacky. 

Mom loved to read, and when spare time allowed, would rather hole up somewhere with a book than be out in a garden. I remember whiling away hot summer afternoons in Michigan lolling on the couch together, reading books while my baby sisters napped. This pastime often included a homegrown tomato, eaten like an apple with a side of salt shaker. For my older sister, it would be a spoon of peanut butter with an apple (consumed with loud crunching to annoy her younger sister.) Library trips were a weekly event, I never left the library without with my arms piled high. In fact, I came home today with six books, window washing be damned! I still love to read and can easily spend a morning or afternoon ignoring my to do list (which can be quite liquid) immersed in a book. And re-reading favorite books. Mom did, and I do too. I love revisiting a favorite tale and familiar characters fondly. 

I see Mom’s influence in the places I shop and the products I purchase. But Mom was not the gardener in our house.

My dad most assuredly passed on gardening to me. Not purposefully but certainly by osmosis.

Dad loved fishing and lake life; my youngest son inherited his passion for fishing. Dad was a builder - not as a career, but on weekends and vacations. He built my parents’ retirement cottage, with help from family and friends. 

Dad liked to cook, and I did not inherit that gift. I cook, but I don’t really like to. There was a period when he owned an industrial plumbing supply, and he had the warehouse built out with a small kitchen. The grill in the warehouse was burning nearly every day, grilling up pork chops, steaks, burgers, sides in the kitchen. He fed the staff lunch several days a week. I worked there for a year or so, while my kids were in school. The boys loved to spend sick days or after school time at the office with me. Or rather - in the warehouse where dad kept a go-kart for them to ride. 

Dad discovered Sam’s Club and shopped with gusto. In the days when they were business only accounts, he kept the kitchens at work, lake-house and home, and sometimes my home, stocked up with cases of fizzy seltzer drinks, huge pots of jam, and mega sized jars of spaghetti sauce that would be doctored up for quick suppers.

Dad had a penchant for landscaping, trimming trees, spacing and planting shrubs and bedding areas. I remember in two homes, one in Michigan one in Texas, he laid beautiful brick patios. I’d give anything to have one. Certainly, this is where my eye for flagstone pads and paths is derived. I much prefer a stone or brick patio to concrete. Dad grew a beautiful Pyracantha vine that he worked with patience, training it to grow against the house. I have a visual of dad coming in the house after a morning of yard work, hot and sweaty. Like Dad, I pour with sweat while working outdoors. I am not a pretty, Martha Stewart gardener by any means.

For a number of years, before retiring out to the lake, my folks lived in a zero-lot line home, and yard areas were quite small. In the backyard was a huge oak, and Dad built a tree house within the branches for my two boys and their cousin. In the long, narrow side yard, banked with glass doors, he created an oasis with dwarf bushes, ground covers and vines espaliered along the fence. Cushioned patio chairs were a comfy place for a cool drink in the evenings. Those chairs are still in use, on my patio. Dad dug a small, sweet garden in an outdoor nook at his final home at the lake, surrounded with stone and with small boulders scattered between perennials and bushes. I have several of those boulders in my garden. 

Though I never had to help my dad work in the yard, somehow, I must have attained my gardening madness him. My workhorse tendencies certainly came from Dad.

Auntie Ree, Mom’s sister, was a gardener. I did not recall this until one of my last visits with her, at her home in Upper Michigan. Her flower beds were plentiful and colorful, and though it was October, I could see her work, and her joy reflected in them. Our very last visit was at my previous home, here in Texas. She viewed my gardens and we talked and talked about the plants. 

Some years ago, I had a floral design business, the other side of gardening; flower arranging.  My workdays were spent flowering weddings, memorial and event flowers, creating daily arrangements and for special occasions. Auntie Ree shared with me that, as a young woman, she was often called upon to “flower the weddings” in her small town, using blooms from her own yard, gardens of friends, and foraged on Michigan roadsides, where they are plentiful in summer. It seems much of my floral and garden sense must have come from Auntie Ree too, or some shared gene. 

I did not know my grandparents well but am told by cousins that my paternal grandmother was creatively wordy. I have memories of letters from her and regret that the boxful I’d kept was lost somewhere along the way. Perhaps my writing gift may be from Grandma. I have a recollection of my paternal grandfather when I was a young child; in his backyard near the grape trellis, whistling to the birds and holding out his hand - they would fly over and perch there. I recall a sense of whimsy that passed to me. 

It’s interesting how even aunties and uncles can come through in our personas, as do mothers, fathers, and grandparents. Where did my gardening passion stem from?  A little here a little there.  

I had contact with several fledgling gardeners this week, as I was giving away perennials dug from my garden to go into their gardens, allowing my garden a little breathing space. My best advice on starting a garden is: start small. You can always expand. My constant refrain when talking gardening is Texas is: amend your soil; and take wisdom from old gardeners!

Happy Summer Solstice!

20 June, 2024

Reprinted from Blue Ribbon News

Reprinted from Kukka in the Blue Ribbon News

April 25, 2024

I can see no way that we will get through the season without me writing about the garden, so let’s do this now. The Mildscape is in glorious full bloom in the third week of April. How can I neglect mentioning vibrant Roses, sweet Dianthus, Cat Mint tipped in a purple haze, Lemon Thyme round, mounded, and beginning to bloom the tiniest flowers. Summer Phlox are just about to burst into bloom and heavenly daze – that Peggy Martin Rose is a beauty! So many perennials and roses are blooming, that while walking through the garden, the sweetest, delicate scent wafts round. Bob Kilgore is already spending a good deal of time pawing, rubbing on, and just lying underneath his Abelias, with somewhat of a drunken demeanor about him. Their aura drives him mad. (I feel I must remind y’all that Bob Kilgore is our kitty, not my husband, for good measure.)

The garden is not without work unless you have a gardener. Around here the title is all mine. It’s nearly impossible for me to sit outdoors and just enjoy the lovely surround without leaping up to grab clippers or acquiring dirty hands from pulling an errant runner of grass or a weed. Still, this spring has been the least laborious in the three-year history of The Mildscape. Planting perennials amidst Drift Roses, flowering bushes, evergreen bushes, and trees, is key for the ambience to stretch through the seasons; with layers of texture and colors, and a few annuals popped in each year for extra splash! 

Ironically, after starting to write about this year of least effort, the fates (make that the pests) have stepped into the garden. The other morning, I wandered out for a close check, after being challenged to produce photos of flaws in the garden. Believe me, The Mildscape is not perfect, but I’m puffed up enough to post photos of the pretty things, not the ugly. To my dismay, I discovered the lower innards of two roses being chewed bare, I feared the bagworms I battled last summer were back to chow down. I grabbed a bottle of garden pesticide and plunged into the fray, in my flannel robe, spraying. Thank heavens I did not make the discovery in the front beds, as some of the neighbors already question my sanity. I foolishly believed I had eradicated them last year. I’d made my way through every bush, tree, and bloom in the garden last July, plucking each bagworm (ugh) I discovered, dropping them in soapy water, and spraying to get rid of them. But here they are again. Fortunately, I’d had some forethought that I ought to do some preventative spraying and had just ordered more of the potion to keep the nasty boogers away. Hopefully I’ve contained the problem. I was bemoaning the temporary reduction in coral roses and reminded myself to look at the big picture. The big picture is lovely, and those two rose bushes will soon bounce back for blooming through the fall. Whenever I feel too heady about the loveliness in The Mildscape, I am brought to my knees by a pest or malady to keep me humble.

Though The Mildscape might appear an established garden, my twiddling with “infrastructure,” i.e. stones for pathways and borders, and trellises, etc., is never-ending. In early spring I try to do the bulk of transplanting and moving perennials, though there is an abundant Coreopsis crowding a spot now, that will be moved as soon as she has finished her first bloom. I have a space waiting just for her.

My planting is complete for the season - before the beginning of May. I have declared my statement of No More Plants (this season - an important caveat.) I’ve been to the nursery and other garden centers for gardening plunder, at least four times since, and have not purchased one new plant. That is unprecedented behavior, and I should be commended. Except, I stumbled across a forgotten, large terra cotta pot in the side yard yesterday, and now I’d like to fill it with a mix of plants for the front porch. Perhaps I could be granted just a small forbearance from my declaration. I was doing so well abstaining but there’s only so long a gardener can do it. (And I still have that five dollar off coupon for May. There’s no point in wasting that.)

When I indicate the work in the garden has been at a minimum, I’m probably making a huge understatement because there is still mulch to put down, deadheading, fertilizing, spraying fungicidal oil, stonework, trimming to keep the jungle at bay. Yesterday I had a pathway project I was chomping to get completed before hot weather sets in. I firmly told myself three hours max (to minimize the likelihood of exhaustion and pain.) When finished with the planned tasks, I sat to rest and looked at the time. Amazing. Done in two and one-half hours. Good call! Until my gardener brain set to spinning and I thought, I might as well use that other allotted half-hour. One hour and fifteen minutes later, I ceased toiling. Three hours later I was popping a couple of OTC tablets from the medicine cabinet to assuage the aches and pains. I do know it’s going to happen. My hubs knows it’s going to happen, and if he knows I’ll be working outdoors, valiantly implores me not to work too hard. I intend to go easy, really, I do. 

Not everyone needs be the possessed gardener that I am. A small flowerbed is likely much wiser than my large undertaking. The work though, takes my mind and puts it on relax, thoughts spin away and I am left with simply the garden work. Good for the spirit. 

My husband stands at our bedroom window, gazing out at The Mildscape, every morning before he heads off for work. This morning, he said “It’s sure pretty. I don’t know what all I am looking at out there, but it looks good!” 

How quickly the seasons have passed in this place. It has been a stellar spring out in The Mildscape. Spring is a time of glory in everyone’s garden. I remain in awe of the flourishing flowers and plants. I was considering taking up needlework again, as it would be easier on the old body. I’d probably just embroider flowers anyway. 

23 April 2024