There’s a process to coming home after a long journey. There’s a process to settling back into one’s routines and ruts and beloved pillows and remembering the systems that facilitate the regular tick of one’s daily life.
Gardeners – by which I mean, individuals who find themselves staring at the state of the tetrapanax along the front path at one o’clock in the morning after a nine-hour flight instead of making a beeline for afore mentioned pillow – share a similar base process with the rest of the normal world, but instinctively add another layer of homecoming to the chaos.
If you’ve been away over a significant shift in the seasons, and/or experiencing gardens bathed by global air currents you can only dream of, your first morning home may look something like this:
1:00 AM – Throw suitcases in hall, glance at stack of envelopes and flyers, two-week old dead bouquet, and layer of dog hair under hall table. Greet dogs. Share moment of detached understanding with cat who emerges to see what the noise is about.
1:05 AM – Go back outside, ostensibly to get coat out of car, realistically to stare at shadows of freeze-wilted large-leafed plants. Breathe in the scent of rotting foliage. Make mental note to remove it in the morning.
1:20 AM – Stare at own bed, duvet, and pillow like a lost lover. Sleep.
4:00 AM – Wake up in the knowledge that there is a zero percent chance of falling back asleep. Get out of bed, accidentally waking spouse. Have minor, whispered argument on the realities of jet lag.
4:05 AM – Grind coffee beans, holding grinder against body to alleviate the brief but necessary screech. Anticipate first sip of black nectar in favorite mug.
4:09 AM – Experience first sip of black nectar in favorite mug.
4:12 AM – Fill watering can and survey what lives, surprisingly enjoying more moments of joy than despair.
4:15 AM – Find significant levels of mealy bug on Alocasia. Cease joyfulness. Berate oneself for bringing it in without treatment the half hour before leaving for the airport. Wash leaves and continue survey.
4:22 AM – Find new generation of scale on shefflera. Berate oneself for never moving it outside for the summer. Consider long months ahead and fantasize over ending the relationship entirely.
4:25 AM – Allow eyes to rest on alarming stack of mail as brain foggily remembers pre-trip, last minute emergency room visit and the undoubted financial reckoning hidden beneath the Costco catalog. Experience a renewed desire to spend time washing schefflera leaves. Do so, muttering under breath.
5:05 AM – Avoid opening mail by deep-cleaning kitchen stovetop. Remember that dishwasher is broken and chimney needed sweeping in June. Continue muttering. Glance at outside thermometer. Shiver. Reflect on the realities of a Mid-atlantic winter. 25F is only the beginning.
6:08 AM – Wonder when the hell the sun will rise so you can see something outside without a flashlight. Half-heartedly sift through mail, pulling out election flyers and throwing them in the fireplace. Feel accomplished. Think of unzipping backpack and logging into computer. Ponder inbox. Feel pit in base of stomach. Cease pondering.
6:12 AM – Look outside for glimmer of sunrise. Consult Weather app. Be disappointed. Screw around on Instagram and allow the sunrise of a warm, perfectly-cared-for garden in New Zealand to both annoy and delight. Scroll past 28 year-old telling followers that the secret to aging is having a 28 year-old body. Mark post as inappropriate. Get the hell off Instagram.
6:45 AM – Watch sky begin to lighten. Stand in dining room window staring at majestic white sycamores reemerging from the woodland after a long green summer. Regard the shadowy, narrow skeletons of hundreds of tulip poplars standing like soldiers; and reflect on how a common tree can be so precious in a different land. Make resolution to remember such things when removing six million pointy seeds out of the gutters tomorrow.
7:00 AM – Sunrise! Greet tiny shafts of sun breaking through tulip poplar soldiers like a giddy idiot, watching the landscape fully reveal itself in tawny shades of orange, brown, and grey. Settle into favorite chair for show. Say a prayer of gratitude for favorite chair. And tulip poplars.
7:32 AM – Dress quietly and usher dogs outside. Stand in doorway and conduct mini pep-talk with oneself over best way to approach the state of the garden. Fluctuate between inadequacy and idealism and settle on a curious heart. Grab phone and tool belt. Plunge in.
2:00 PM – Return to house for lunch and cup of tea. Look at stack of mail. Think of inbox. Glance at pet hair on floor. Take sandwich and tea back out to garden to avoid such trivialities. Tomorrow instead. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Yes…. Um… almost exactly! Except I greet my goldfish and 20yr old Japanese Firebelly newt…THEN walk outside to see who is alive and who is not haha! Do you have a video camera set up at my house? Even the thing you do with the coffee grinder!
It seems that everyone relates to the coffee grinder – which makes me happy as it means that people are theoretically drinking good coffee without paying $5 a pop for it at Starbucks. 😉 – MW
Welcome back! I hope you are gradually re-acclimating to this side of the Atlantic! So much to do with winter breathing down our necks, isn’t there? I hope your garden isn’t sulking from being left like that!
The situation is way better than I hoped. A lot of color from foliage holding on – and the foil throughout all is the tawny/beige of the grasses. Almost stopping me from plans to remove a couple next year! – MW
I needed to red your musings, as I just returned from an outdoor view of what my daughter and her boy friend did while they were visiting for the holidays. I am a “leave the leaves person,” and having been ill through this past gardening season, things look rough around here. Well, they bought a more powerful blower and tried to help. Can I say “scorched earth?” My Hexastylis are flattened, as are many evergreen ferns. I am not happy, but I still want to live to see another spring. This past one was spectacular, with Trilliums, bloodroot, spring beauties and trout lilies galore. I wonder if those little bulbs and rhizomes were able to keep their roots own?? Anyway, time will tell. I so enjoy your writings. Thanks .
I’m sure they thought they were helping you. Which is supposed to soften the blow. Many years ago my parents went away and a gardening friend watered for them. He decided that one of their small trees needed a hard pruning and shaping. It didn’t spring back and they removed it eventually. My mother is still (20 years on) relating the story bitterly. LOL – MW
Been there done that-I’m out in the garden before the car is unpacked, much to Bill’s chagrin. I think you hit the nail on the head here!
I enjoy your style, writing and otherwise
Thank you Marcia – very appreciated. – MW
‘Grind coffee beans, holding grinder against body to alleviate the brief but necessary screech’ I certainly appreciate your musings on what, where, when, and how plants are growing, or not. But the coffee grinder move brought a big smile. This week I grabbed a freshly laundered feather pillow to muffle that 9 seconds of screeching.
I’ve done it with a pillow too. But only when we have guests. 🙂 – MW
Oh, my, I love your writing! And, since meeting in person; it is fun to actually see and hear you saying your words in my head. Thank you, thank you!
Hi Jennifer – many thanks! And lovely to meet you last February in Illinois. – MW
My house deadens sound very effectively, so I don’t have to muffle the coffee grinder. The image of you doing so made me smile.
Lucky you! – MW
“Share moment of detached understanding with cat” love that!
Add watering pots with phone flashlight at 11pm before working out of town for the week.
Leave house at 5am.
Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.
Thank you! One of the things that travel does is that it makes us really think about what we’re saving and what we’re throwing. I was watering very much as you describe just before I left, and pulled in those alocasia last minute, but it was a mistake. They’re going down to the basement this week to go dormant and may the force be with them. It’s being away for a little while that allows me to see things with fresh eyes, instead of guilty ones! – MW
A towel wrapped around the grinder helps muffle the noise. My husband is hard of hearing so it’s really not necessary. He has a hand grinder that’s much quieter. Waiting for sunrise from Nov. – Feb. has become a lesson in patience, especially here in Maine. Seeing trees in a “different light” does make me appreciate them more. Write on, Marianne!
Many thanks Kris. I’m looking forward to the rosy blush taken on by tulip poplar bark as it gets colder. – MW
Just thanks — everything in this rang true. I was away on 4 major adventures which all bunched up on the calendar for more than 4 months between October 2022 and October 2023. Each return reminded me that I’ll be happy to stay home for a while too!
Travel is a wonderful thing, but keeping it in balance with the roots made at home (literally and figuratively) is a challenge. I’m very much enjoying my nest at the moment! – MW
Maybe the only good thing to be said for going away 🙂 is the fresh eye. Hard to get if you’re a Not Traveller – though sometimes a similar effect can be obtained by suddenly seeing the garden in a reflection of a window.
Now you ruminate on all you discovered……