Dear reader, it is hot. I just checked the temperature and it says only 99 degrees which is either a total lie or proof the heat has psychologically broken me.
Probably both. Or maybe just the latter. Like, if this was an interrogation and Heat was sitting there stroking his repugnant cat, I would've already named my accomplices, their hiding places, and how they like their eggs for breakfast.
I tried going for a trail run on Saturday morning, the first in two weeks, and it was quite the rite of passage. I wandered in the wilderness, had a vision, a near death experience, and a conversation with a wolf. The wolf took one look at me and said have you lost your mind? I scowled and said, have you lost yours? because that's about all I was good for, comeback-wise. Then he called me a piece of beef jerky which, granted, hurt my feelings but the worst part was how thirsty it made me.
Anyway...I still feel sick from that run.
This week I'm home with Izzy and Caroline. We're making friendship bracelets and possibly an embroidery project if I can muster the stamina to insert a piece of linen in a hoop. Just thinking about it makes me tired. And thirsty.
Sophie is off in Iowa playing volleyball and my husband is text bombing the living daylights out of my phone so I can follow her progress. It's pretty thrilling stuff.
Pictured above is Izzy's garden. It's a tiny plot in the middle of our yard. Looking at it, I don't know whether to be touched or depressed.
I grew up with a garden the size of this entire backyard, with a pea patch so endless and wild the tendrils would snake around your ankles and attempt to pull you under as you wandered by. I think I actually lost a little cousin to that patch. The soil was rich and black with fat, pink worms and the smell of minerals, compost, and manure.
Izzy is so intrigued by gardening that I am constrained to give it another go. When we first moved to Las Vegas fifteen years ago I enthusiastically attempted to carry on the torch of my gardening heritage and then, as the horror of the heat and the brick-like quality of the soil dawned upon me, eventually capitulated.
It strikes me that step number one in this renewed venture, if it is to be a success, is to stop thinking of the garden of my childhood.
Indeed, I've found waiting for the ideal conditions in order to be happy has always been a surefire recipe for unhappiness...so I guess I choose to be touched by Izzy's little pea patch.
Touched by her wonder and delight at the miracle of planting a seed and watching it grow. Touched by her excitement to build some raised beds in the corner of our backyard and maybe even add a chicken coop!
