““I like symmetry” she said. Not using those words exactly, it was more like “I’m an even girl”. But I knew what she meant. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, using the top of my tee shirt, because my hands were dirty. We were standing in the driveway, next to the newly refurbished fountain that shone blue, like a swimming pool. This was supposed to be the coolest day of the week, yet temperatures here in the valley and the lake had passed 80, by noon. “We’ve been on it, with the hedge hog”, I replied, gesturing towards the house, and a garden landscape grown suddenly ominous, due to miles of overgrown shrubbery. “Once every couple weeks is not going to do it, I need you weekly”, she continued. I nodded, and gave up something like a smile. “Of course,” I said, and meant it to sound convincing. In my mind I was thinking of all my other clients and their demands, while in my heart, still wanting to please. I’ve never grown a business so rapidly as I did this year, and the intricacies of this new reality are coming home to roost. Another scenario jarred my memory. “Go home!” she’d commanded, trying to sound stern. My co-worker would have to leave her dog for the day, and this charming black lab, eyed us dolefully, with her most serious, pitiable expression. From the truck window, the words came again, softer this time. “Go home”, she pleaded. I sat at the steering wheel of my truck, waiting out the exchange. Sometimes it takes herculean effort, just to leave the house. I used to have a dog who would chase my car down the road, unless I stopped, flung the door open, swung out and stamped my feet and got histrionic, with the very same words. Repeatedly. Maybe four starts and stops, at a go. So, a la my co-worker: small change. Allis, a good girl, would go home. And we would go forth, to meet our own challenges, far different than those of a dog heading back to spend the day with her other parent. Not a bad life. This rat race could be far worse. It is for many. Most of my real pains, are existential. Could be I miss something I thought I had, like true love, or even a solid partnership, or creative freedom. Picture a daily attempt to escape those questions, and you might find yourself with me. In lieu of answers, come plants, and gardens, and seasonal shifts, and clients who impose their wish lists, erasing mine, at least for a time. This bigger business model moves me like no other, & maybe in there, somewhere, I feel wanted. Or don’t notice so much, where I’m not. Just as the occasional person has wanted to be closer to me, and I have danced & maneuvered away, so do I remain chastened by a few I thought I knew better, who left. Seems highly unlikely I’ll be hanging up my trowel, any time soon. The care I can’t send to the bunch that I’ve craved more from, goes as surely, into fertilization, and pruning and deep, clarifying, bucket fulls, of water. Ditto, the amazing co-conspirators I couldn’t quite embrace fully, as if some hormone were missing, or tribal code, that would allow me to release. All this pent up what ever it is, I need it to go, and that’s maybe why I go. Go home, or go anywhere, in the truck, in my dreams, in my songs. Just need to go, and then eventually, god willing, arrive.”
