The Eternal Garden

Yesterday I picked beans, cleaned beans, and canned beans. All on a day featuring 100 degree temperatures. The beans were ready, even if I wasn't.

I was alone in my garden, but I didn't feel alone. It was like I could feel my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and all the others who came before me right there with me. I realized that ever since woman's creation we've done this thing: We've tilled, seeded, and harvested in order to feed our families. That in itself is such a humbling thing. The schedule of the earth and the seasons becomes your schedule. There is something about that natural cycle that is just so real, you know? We can't put it off, we can't do it when it's convenient, the time for harvest is now, and we must answer that call or the crop goes to waste. Not only must we pick on time, but we must process that crop or, once again, it goes to waste. So you stand there with sweat rolling down your neck, back, legs, until you finish the job.

We always say firewood warms you twice, once when you're cutting, and again when you burn. The garden is the same... only it doesn't just warm your body, it warms your soul. It feeds a deeper need we have, a connection with what's real on this earth, and what's really important. In that moment when you're sweating and itching and looking forward to that cold beer, ice tea, water from the hose even, you know you're doing what millions of women all through time and from all over the world have done, were designed to do. And somehow you're content. And you're never alone.

The cruelty of silence

One of my sons just rescued our ancient collie from the bottom of the basement stairs. He had fallen, and couldn't get up. Sadly, he doesn't have a lifeline available to him. See, he's been debarked.

We didn't do it, I bought him as an adult from a breeder in a suburb who had a lot of neighbors, and a strong desire to keep peace. You couldn't meet nicer people, they loved their dogs, they bred and showed collies for over 40 years until finally succumbing to age and ill health, but in order to live there in the 'burbs, they silenced their dogs.

Over the years I became used to the hoarse little noise Victor made when he was barking his alarms against marauding bicyclists and joggers as they passed, although it always made me sad. He would work so hard to get our attention, sashaying right up into our faces and huffing at us, telling us all we had failed to do to reach his standards, or telling us about his day... but the saddest thing about the loss of his voice was his inability to whine, or groan, or make all those little noises that signify so many things.

Tonight was the worst, though. Victor is old. His body is giving up, though his spirit is still strong. The only reason we found him tonight was that he was panting so hard my son could hear him across the yard and came in to tell me something was wrong. He couldn't whine. He couldn't bark. All he could do was fricking breathe loud.

Our plan was to put him to sleep before another winter could make his bones ache unbearably... But I guess it's time to say a final good night to our good boy. What a terrible decision to have to make. It just breaks my heart to finally silence such an indomitable spirit--One who insisted on being heard, although you had to listen just a little harder to hear what he had to say.

Brain Congestion!

Image via Wikipedia

In researching our family genealogy I happened on a death index from 1860, and possibly one key to my in-law's fears.

In 1860 only 3 people died in King County, one of them some sort of great aunt of ours, apparently. She died from "Congestion of the Brain." This explains so many things to me about some of my in-laws. "Auntie died of brain congestion--we have to be soooo careful not to fall into that trap! Burn the library card! See what can happen if your brain gets too full? Look at Auntie Emily!"

When my husband and I were dating, my FIL and MIL were completely floored by my attraction to books and writing. It was unnatural! A waste of life! Of course, we're talking about people that believed the stuff in the National Enquirer. "They wouldn't let them print lies!" Dramas for TV were taken as gospel, with no allowance for artistic license. Book larnin' was only good for a few things. You're much better off learning from experience, said FIL. I figured I wasn't about to waste the interesting part of my life learning the hard way things that people already knew (other than recreationally, of course, especially involving beer) so I took that with a bucket of salt. Books were a terrible waste of time. Deplorable. Of course, my MIL was a fantastic housekeeper, while I work to stay ahead of the hairballs rolling under the couch... so they may have a point, there. Of course, MIL could have benefited from some good cookbooks... much less allrecipes.com.

Of course, now that I read about Aunt Emily, it all comes together. I understand the fear of overstuffing their brains, now... It's a deepseated genetic fear.

Being the over-achieving knowledge-whore that I am, though, I of course had to look up exactly what brain congestion was. Sure enough, in the 1850s a scholarly paper was written by James M. Newman (no sense of humor-couldn't be related to Alfred E. Neuman) about Congestion of the Brain in cholera cases. It's on the National Library of Medicine site, if you're as bad as I am. The doctor's chosen treatment is enough to leave you with nightmares, if you survived. He would shave your head, stick it in ice, and then attach leeches to your temples. I don't know what that had to do with vomiting and diarrhea, but it was his theory. Some patients survived, so he figured he had the cure. No wonder the in-laws are still afraid of brain congestion...