Cool and overcast, but still, as I climbed the southern slope of Lake Mälaren this afternoon, on my day off. Proved to be a good place to ventilate the turmoil of my turbulent take off with Louis earlier in the day, replete with a brief account of a vivid dream that I have always intended to record, ever since it happened (only once) in 1971. Louis continues to nurture the dream on paper, making sure that we both land on our feet, one here and one there.
Gotta soften those stiff old garden gloves. High time to change into overalls, a favorite ochre yellow LL Bean jacket, Gortex just in case it rains, regardless of what Obama would wear if he were in Stockholm today.
Properly clothed for the occasion, I proceeded to pull up the last of the Jerusalem artichokes, earthen jewels, out of their settings, and turn the soil. Collected the biggest chokes into a paper bag and replanted the smaller ones, deposited their withered stalks into a new compost heap, along with dried pea and bean vines that I had just managed to unravel from their trellises. And as I sifted out twigs from the composted earth and shoveled the rich soil over the empty beds, I thought of mom, laid to rest again this winter. And as I raked maples leaves into piles on a tarp, and portioned them out around the fuchsias and roses, I thought of dad. Working together – from above and below.
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