The best book so far in 2015. Do not rely on NYT's review ... rely on the Hammagrael kid. When your college roommate says a book reminds her of you, you take the bait. OMG, it's me, it's my yard, my garden, my water bill, and on and on. On a snowy day, a day early in March when I should be thinking about hiring someone to till out the blackberry roots so the deer won't have a maternity ward, this book reminds me that spring will eventually come, with weeding and mowing and vermin control.
As much as I'd like to, I am not about to prepare a 2,000 square feet vegetable garden, although I probably will look to winter over my thyme and find some wild aggressive arugula seeds. I loved this book because it is set in the Hudson River valley, because Mr. Lawrence seems to have all the parallel experiences of a long married couple with two aloof children, a house with never-ending annoyances (yesterday, the newly installed back door knob came off in my hands, leaving the screws in the door and a gaping hole for the drafts to come through. I can relate to inexplicably high water bills, unhandy repairmen, and purslane.
At my advancing towards retirement age, I also chide myself from trying to maintain beds of flowers that are an unending cycle of tending, dead-heading and babying. And like WL, this is a hobby of only one person in the household, me, the rest just enjoying the bouquets and seasonings.
Besides laughing reading whole paragraphs out loud, there is one page worth quoting at length:
"...In short, I am an Existentialist in the Garden. Camus in chamomille, Satre in the salad. How on earth did I get here, and how do I get out? Do I want to get out? If I leave, where to I go? ... What I've been doing is rewarding, nourishing, and reflective of a philosophical belief in self-sustenance and healthy, fresh food -- but how do I make it fun again. This is supposed to be a hobby, not a burden ... a lesson in how quickly novelty becomes ritual becomes chore. The great, terrifying existential question: If you were doomed to live the same life over and over again for eternity, would you choose the life you are living now? The question is interesting enough, but I've always thought the point of asking it is really the unspoken, potentially devastating follow-up question. That is, if the answer is no, then why are you living the life you are living now? Stop making excuses, and do something about it."
I thought I mentally debated this during my two bouts of cancer and resolved the issue once and for all, Not. My daily life comes under continuous reassessment. Garden is the least of it.
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