So Many Ways to Get There

The paths of Winterthur

Sometime when we were young, my Aunt Charlotte drove us out into the countryside here in southeastern Pennsylvania for what seemed at the time a grand adventure. It’s horse country just west of here - big stone barns, green, green fields and rolling hillsides, glistening creeks, small winding roads named after the old Quaker meeting houses that peek from meadow and woods along the way. At every crossroads, my usually very proper, go-by-the-book aunt would stop the car and look at us mischievously. “Which way?” she would ask, and one of us would get to choose - left, right, straight ahead - until I was absolutely certain we were lost for good. I don’t remember how often we played this magnificent game nor how far our wanderings took us. It may have happened only once for a few short miles, such are the vagaries of old memories - we extend and multiply them over time. But I remember that sense of adventure, Charlotte’s grin, and the power of being given a chance to choose. To this day, I think of my aunt on every Pennsylvania country road I take, no matter where I’m going.

John and I are beginning to play a similar game, although it is no longer Aunt Charlotte who gives us choices, it is our Tesla. Yesterday, we decided to drive out to Winterthur, one of the DuPont estates just over the Delaware border, and every time we’d deviate from the prescribed routing on our map, the car would obligingly reroute itself in answer to our whims. The magnificent countryside is still there, as are the Quaker meeting houses (though a shocking number of developments and townhouses are now tucked among the trees or pasted on the hillsides), and, as we enjoyed the chance on a hot day to follow the cool creeks, and drive under vast canopies of trees, I had a revelation about Aunt Charlotte’s country parlor trick: out here, everything is just over the next hill or around the corner, but there are so many ways to get there. No matter what direction we chose those years ago, she always had another way to get us home.

This isn’t true in California even now. Any day trip out of San Francisco has only one or two routes - and once you’ve chosen, you’re committed. There is no re-routing, no side trips along the way. Winterthur, by contrast, is only 17 miles as the crow flies from our new Pennsylvania house - a lovely destination, by the way, well worth the trip. But the myriad little roads, pikes and highways we could have chosen made getting there the adventure of the day.

Busy Bees

Last evening I sat on the steps to the garage, mesmerized by the sight of bees quietly going about their busy business. They were everywhere, wings glowing in the golden light. Tiny ones, big bumbling ones, honey bees and wasps, buzzing endlessly around the small patches of garden I’ve managed to lay down. As predicted by the experts, this host of insects (whoever knew or noticed there were so many kinds?) skip entirely the lovely non-native roses and lilies I’ve snuck into the corners of this early bed and go straight for the liatris, the cardinal flowers, the monarda, the salvia, and those cheerful coneflowers I just put in this week.

I am just beginning on a long journey to understand the importance, why’s and wherefores, and do’s and don’ts of native gardening, and the few plants that I have managed to get into the ground this spring have only just begun to flower. I have already made mistakes - too much sun or too little, too much water, not enough, pretty but not native, native but not pretty - there is so much to do and to learn. I am lucky, however, to have at my disposal a bigger lawn than I deserve, friends to coach me, and enough time, I hope, to build a few more meadow paths and gardens and to see at least a little of my effort bear fruit (so to speak). I am sure that what we do on this small acreage cannot, alone, fix the rapid decline of the ecosystem that surrounds us and threatens its collapse. But these lovely bees’ quick gracing of this nascent garden gives me hope and pleasure, and reminds me that every one and every thing has a role, no matter the size, in our shared world. So I guess I’d better rouse myself from this comfortable spot and do like the bees and get busy.

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This post is dedicated to my dear friend and mentor Dorothy Thomsen, whose life embodied ‘doing better’ until the very end. 101 is good enough. Rest in peace, my friend.

Rain

Last night we sat out on the porch until well after midnight, strategically poking, every few minutes, the temporary tarp we’ve erected, trying to keep ahead of the downpour that threatened to bring the whole thing crashing down. Water gushed from every corner for long enough to worry but, I’m glad to say, both tarp and garden are still in place this morning and ready for the 4th.

Even though I only lived full time in California for five years, I got used to the fact that in the summer, rain would never, ever come and in the winter, its behavior proved always uneventful. No thunder, no lightening, no dramatic clouds. Just hard rain for hours at a time (at least before the drought). And so it is still a surprise and delight when these East Coast thunderstorms blow through, lighting the sky and bending the trees, here for a time and then as quickly gone. You can see them coming through small openings in the woods and sense their approach by the behavior of the birds. We are enchanted.

We probably would have lingered under the eaves even if the rain had passed us by and the tarp had not been threatened. On nights heavy with humidity but no sign of rain, the lightening bugs and the sound of quiet woods are enough to make us linger in the dark until the mosquitos drive us in. But as it was, last night we stayed a tad bit longer, listening to thunder as good as any fireworks, and poking the tarp until the runoff nearly drowned our newly planted flowers. This is our summer. This is our life. It is enough. And more.