When All Else Fails

Too many days of rain. It doesn't help that the front entrance of our house faces northeast. The only thing that grows in the root-tangled and rock-pocked patch of earth are uneven spots of scraggly moss. The grayish fur appears to be some alien life-form, slithering over the porch steps and creeping up the walls of our house. In the side garden and along the back, the peas and lilies are equally drunk on the moisture. Their glimmer of southern exposure gives them license to sprawl, languid and shameless, in the faint afternoon light. Out front, however, the barren earth every visitor to our house must pass looks like a molded date loaf.

Sometime about mid-July, it seems every inhabitant of the cloudy north country comes to the dawning awareness of summer's failure to fulfill. We hunger all winter for it, storing our boats and gazing longingly at our swimsuits tucked in the bottom drawer. We itch for barbeques on the lake, kite-flying in a grassy field, biking along mountain trails with our kids pedaling feverishly behind us.

But then comes June. It rains. It rains for hours, then days. It rains for weeks. The lake is too choppy to take the canoe out, and do we want to risk hauling everything to the beach when another downpour is forecast? Then comes July. We grab at murky rays of sun, hang on tight, run with the kite and the kids up the hill, determined, hopeful. We catch summer on the days in between. Not even days. No, in the moments in between.

It appears I have reached that point of realization. Toto, I don't believe we're in Colorado anymore. Summer is not going to come to me, magical, unbidden, warming. Alas, I am simply going to have to fashion a summer out of whatever scraps of color and slivers of light I can find.

So, I decided I'd had it with wilted moss. I mean, I didn't even know moss could wilt, but it appears it does. "Rot" is probably the more accurate term. But whatever it's doing, I have to trudge past and over its feeble attempt at life every time I take the dog for a leak or convey Eliot to the swings or slog groceries into the kitchen. I can't help but wrinkle my nose and try to just get past it. Move quickly. Don't look down.

Tuesday was July 7. Summer, whatever it will be, had arrived and was, in fact, zipping by without a backward glance. So, on yet another gray afternoon, I hauled Eliot out to the car, tried to keep my eyes up, and made a beeline for the local nursery. I asked the helpful fellow who was wandering, aimless and customer-less, among his overgrown annuals, what I could buy to spruce up a shady patch. He pointed me to a clutter of plants without name tags, jostling and expectant, under a tarp tent. They all appeared far too excited to be there. I let Eliot choose whatever drew his attention. He had a difficult time closing in on his preferred shade of pink, but we finally slid a flat of purpley somethings into the back end of the Subaru. We added mulch and a few perennials. As I was packing topsoil into the trunk, Eliot appeared from between the rows holding a single gerbera daisy so astonishingly yellow, I couldn't help but catch my breath. "Can we get this, mommy?" Of course, I told him. It would be criminal not to.

Back at home, we gathered one mud-encrusted Radio Flyer wagon, two pairs of gardening gloves, and several digging implements. Eliot and I picked through the supply of stones the soil here squeezes forth endlessly, maddeningly. We made a soft shape, an oval, a ring of stones. No rectangles or sharp corners for our front yard. We filled it with fresh topsoil, Eliot grabbing up the rich blackness by the fistful and squishing it into our bed. We dug holes. Eliot carried each flower to me in its pot. He held it with two hands, took mincing steps, then plopped it, without any sense of delicacy, onto the earth. We gave those little clumps of roots and petals a new home and a new set of responsibilities in our family. Together, they must remind us to pause when we walk past. To look. They must help us be thankful for the fleeting glories of summer, for rain and light, for this fertile place.

This afternoon, as we packed our gym bags and snacks in the car for a trip to the Glens Falls Y, Eliot strode out on the porch and gasped, "Look at our beautiful garden!" Yes, of course. Look at it!