mary, mary...quite contrary...

how does your garden grow...

the whole time i have been working on this garden
(and i'm telling you...it feels like a LOT of time...
i had no idea how much time this would take...)
i keep thinking about my uncle emmett.

when i planted my first garden
(back before i started shooting weddings)
my uncle emmett would stop by
to tell me how to keep the birds from
pulling my shoots up
and what to plant next to what
and when...
he would drive by the back lot
where the garden was
in his big old blue truck
to check on how it was doing
even when i wasn't home...
and then would call me when i
did get home to tell me that he was by
and it looked like the string beans
were finally coming up...

i can't tell you how much i miss that advice...
the sound of that big old blue truck coming up the road,
the little dog on the seat next to him...
i miss his big booming voice, his wheezy easy laugh
especially when he was making a joke at your expense
(cause that's what we do best in our family...
it means we love you...)

so today, when i went out and saw that
where last night there were NO string beans,
today they were popping up all over the place...
i immediately thought of him...
and how he would tell me to get some
aluminum pie plates out there to stop the birds
and how he would laugh when i told him
i already had to yell at 2 crows and a robin.

♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥

and today will be brought to you by...

cinderella...specifically nobody's fool
cold popcorn with lots of butter and salt,
but you have to promise to scrape each kernel
against the bottom of the bowl
to capture as much salty buttery goodness as you can.

vhs tapes of videos recorded straight from
good rockin' tonight and video hits....

lots and lots and LOTS of bon jovi
specifically living on a prayer
and you give love a bad name...
it is imperative that you screech shrilly when he scrunches his nose
and shakes his hair.

a little billy idol, a little love removal machine
and some ac dc because i can give as well as take.

there will kool aid and turpentine (but we don't suggest you drink it)
and a Kraft homemade pizza that i will pick the meat off
to offer to highest bidder...

later in the day, we should take a walk,
up this road and back....to her house and back to mine...
singing.
at the top of our lungs.

it occurred to me recently
that when you have lived on the same island, same province,
same town even...pretty much your whole life...
it affects you.

every walk that i take, every drive,
every left turn,
every right...
i am every age that i have ever been.
on one street, i am 5 waiting for dad to get home from work,
i am 10 buying cigarettes (export a) for my parents and penny candy
at the store across the street,
i am 15 walking with her to burger king, waiting to go to the show...
every street holds a memory
and the capacity to instantly transport me
by a smell, a slant of light, a sound so vague & familiar at once.

it's a funny thing.

anyway, i'm wordy and quiet all at once tonight.
tomorrow is her birthday...
on the way back from our beach, i stopped by to see her...
i rolled the car window and played bon jovi loud...

i found a dead frog and for a second i thought,
i am always looking for a sign...how warped would that be
if you sent me a sign by leaving a dead frog in my path
that instantly reminded me of the time that Davis threw the dead frog
at the men working on the road...and then we took the tires
off his bike and threw them in the field behind my house...heeheehee...remember?

{you wouldn't really send me a dead frog for a sign...would you?}
:)

the heart shaped rock i gave you last year
was still there....

but the wildflowers must have blown away.

this makes me happy...this is how i feel...this is how i want to feel...this is what i want to believe.

this makes me happy...this is how i feel...this is how i want to feel...this is what i want to believe.