WILD HEART

 Wild thistles grew up in my back garden — the same garden that gets mostly ignored each Spring while the maintenance frenzy is targeted in the front of the house — the “Show Gardens." 

Near the end of June, I force my way into the weedy patch, yanking and swearing under my breath. On this hillside berm, only a smattering of the hardiest perennials are still alive, the ones we planted with such optimism eight or nine years ago from $24 pots of nursery stock — specimen flowers and special grasses.  

By now, I expected a hillside swimming with intense yellow Black Eyed Susans, punctuated with purple coneflowers and stands of waving ornamental grasses, all corralled within regal rhubarb leaves — edible space fillers.  Instead, Creeping Charlie, wild ginger, plus an army of other weeds took over.  I begin the exorcism but leave the wispy Queen Ann’s Lace and wild thistle, the iconic image of Scottish souvenirs.

Thistles, it turns out, come in all varieties and many are edible, especially the genus Cynara, a.k.a. artichokes. The thistle in my garden is Cirsium or “bull thistle,” identifiable by that well known shaving brush “bloom” of short purple spikes. It’s a biennial — that is, it only appears every other year, and it turns out that most parts of this prickly plant provide nutrients for humans who are brave enough to dive past the sharp thorns. 

Not me. Now, in August, the plant is brown, and the purple brush has gone to seed. Every day a bright yellow goldfinch arrives. He perches on the top and eats seeds from the bulb head. I look forward to his visits with much more joy than a hillside of black eyed susans ever could provide.  

Watching this little bird picnic ritual is more fun than fussing over any perfectly groomed flower bed. Why did I ever try to insist otherwise? It’s that old devil “control.” If growing old changed anything about me (O.K., not counting the sagging skin, gray hair, arthritic joints…AND I CAN’T SING NOW! And don’t even talk to me about memory!), it’s the willingness to give up control.  I’m still a detail fanatic.  I “notice” but I don’t feel compelled to correct and that’s a major personality shift.

I confess that I spent much of my life saying “I can’t.” “Why don’t you?” “They won’t.” “Why can’t they?” "Do it my way.” “Don’t do that EVER.” 

Why did I spend so much energy trying to control all things — all these people, all these parts? How did I ever expect to juggle it all — not just events and people within my reach but pretty much worldwide?! Is that the sin of arrogance? I wonder how things might have been different had I learned this lesson fifty years ago — or maybe even last year?

Is this new found acceptance a gift of age or a side affect of the Covid year?

The Road to My House