A Closing History

I was going to write my final blog post on our trip to Nine Mile Run, but I felt that would have cheated my spot of one last opportunity to talk.  So in these first glowing days of spring, I paid a visit to the garden.  My black sweater absorbed the growing heat as I stood on the path to observe.  The lawn itself was a bit too muddy from the morning rain to venture over in flip-flops, but this mud is more hopeful than the mess I experienced in winter.  The ground seems brighter and the plants are waking up.  And here, in the sludgy lawn, I find the discarded thoughts of this garden’s history from weeks ago.  So I suppose the blog will end were so many stories begin: with history.

The neighboring academic hall, Buhl, underwent a series of renovations and additions a number of years ago.  Before the college developed any more ideas of taking over what little green space was left between Buhl and Welker, the late Dr. Roxanne Fisher and colleagues claimed the land with roots.  They brought in left over’s from home—plants and herbs and shrubs—until they declared the area as the Rachel Carson Garden.

This title has led to some surprising confusion over the years.  As I mentioned much earlier this semester, after four years at Chatham I only recently became aware of this hidden garden.  The first time I heard about the Rachel Carson Garden the information came in the form of an urban legend:

A number of years ago, a man and his wife traveled all the way from London just to have a chance to experience the great Rachel Carson Garden.  After some hesitated directions by confused students, the couple descended upon the struggled garden.  Unfortunately, the small garden and its scattered planting quickly disappointed the couple.  They took their anger straight to whoever on campus would listen and demanded something be done.  And from there the University put forth more effort to build the garden to live up to the traveler’s excitement.

Coming from the land of Weird New Jersey, I understand the rooted truth urban legends grab on to.  Sometimes the ghost boy throws your friend’s quarter back over dead man’s curve—and sometimes you throw a completely different quarter at your friends back and watch them run screaming to the car.  Sometimes phantom headlights follow you down the eight miles of streetlight-less pavement associated with Clinton Road—and sometimes teenager wait in the woods with their car’s off for a lone car to come barreling along only to follow that car with their lights off for minutes before suddenly FLASH phantom headlights and FLASH gone again.

As far as the Rachel Carson Garden goes, there were travelers—not from London, but still from far enough away—angered by the time wasted on the patchy garden.  However, it was not their anger completely that fueled the further development of the garden but rather the generous senior gift of the Class of 2011. 

Still, the intent was not just to plant will-nilly.  Money was not the only factor.   Time and input were needed to construct an aesthetic and sustainable planting plan.  And, after a few semesters’ studies by the landscape architecture program, planting can continue.

Each section of the garden is tended with a different purpose: pollinator; edible; perfume; rain.  The end hope is a garden that not only produces but teaches as well.  The process is slow—a little in the fall, a little during Buckets and Blossoms this spring—but it’s continual. 

So this may be my final visit in terms of blogs, but I know these aren’t my last moments in the garden.  Soon enough dirt will embed my nails as I tuck eager plants into their new homes. 

On Birds and Italian Ice

Today was the first day of spring and I made it a point to visit my garden before I headed to Oakland to meet my roommate for our annual celebration of Free Rita’s Day.  The air still made me shiver while a paced the mulch and grass and the plants still look cold and tired, but the freshness of the wet dirt seems hopeful.  But for the first time since I started this blog absolutely no snow could be found in or near my garden.  Even earlier in this winter, when unusually warm days left me without the need of my winter jacket, clusters of snow clung to the cool shaded corners of the garden.

Even so,  I could tell something was off today from the moment I descended the stairs to the nestled garden.  Not until I heard the solitary crow’s caw did I realize the birds were missing.  Their sweet, if not cacophonous, chirps called to me for the past two days while I sat in front of a computer at work.  They even called to me from my apartment window in the fading night, their conversations so loud it felt as though they shared the room with me.  Just this morning, on my walk to work, robin redbreasts and daring squirrels flecked the sloped green of the chapel’s hill.

Yet by the time I reached the garden early this evening it seemed they all had vanished.  Even the three crows—only one of which bothered to speak that individual caw—hopped from tree to tree as they, too, deserted me. 

It would surprise me if my sudden appearance in the garden had caused the dismissal of the birds—and squirrels for that matter.  I doubted the tired branches hosted the birdy party of the year until my clomping steps scared them all away.  The animals on this campus are anything but scared.  In fact, I sometimes think they might be a little too daring in their proximity to humans.  Just this past December, a squirrel chewed through a screen in the middle of the night and broke in to a friend’s apartment to dine on an unopened bag of rice cakes.  Though it left long before she woke the next morning, it came back later that day to wait longingly at the now closed window.

 And the birds?  Those brazen chickadees?  Why they’d sooner yell at you than move out of your path.  Not that they don’t have a right to be there.  Chickadees are actual a favorite of mine.  I hear they can become comfortable enough around a particular human to eat out of his or her hand, though my mother and I were never quite able to test this theory out in her Disney movie of a backyard.

But this tangent just adds to my argument: my being in the garden should not have been cause for the birds to run—well I guess technically fly—away. 

The garden felt eerie on this first day of spring.  It should have been cheerful and exciting without the insulation of the quiet snow.

I left the garden, took the long way around campus to catch a bus on 5^th and wait in line for my free Rita’s.  And do you know what happened when I reached the top step out of my garden?  The birds came back.  Their voices sounded soft and distant, especially compared to the chorus in the air the past two days.  But nonetheless their voices returned and travel as far as they could.

  So maybe the birds aren’t angry with me invading their garden.  Maybe they’re mad at the garden.  Or maybe they know the date of the calendar means nothing; that there is the possibility of snow this coming weekend and we are doomed to this winter/spring limbo for a while longer. 

Silly humans they think, retreating again from the weather, eating your Italian ice in the cold.  Pretending it’s spring doesn’t make it spring.

And they might be right.  But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed my mango ice any less.

My Place at Home

Going home for spring break means three things—warm peach kugel, a seventy-five pound torpedo of a yellow lab, and the reservoir.  

As much as I enjoy my weekly time in my garden, each time I visit I can’t help longing for my natural place in my home town: The Oak Ridge Reservoir.  You see, I did not always enjoy my time outdoors as much as I do now, and the reservoir is where it all began.  Sure, I participated in Girl Scout as a child; I went on all the camping trips and made birdfeeders out of pinecones and peanut butter.  But the reservoir is different, it is the nature hidden in my own neighborhood that evaded my interest as a child.  There is nothing all that special in its building blocks.  It has all the typical animals found roaming the yards of my small hometown in northwest New Jersey—the deer that flee at the smallest crack of a branch, curious frogs that leave everything covered in slime, and probably some bears that are as skilled at staying away from me as I am from them.  Yet every time I swung over the metal barrier only successful in keeping large vehicles out, I was presented with a quiet, new are to explore. 

Even though any of its many entrances are no more than a fifteen minute walk from my house, I was not introduced to the reservoir until a few months before my 18^th birthday.  On an unusually warm day in late March my boyfriend, Matt, parked as close to the metal barrier as he could maneuver his old Saturn and introduced me to his childhood playground.  This still snow covered trail, he explained, was a surprise intended to cheer me up after a stressful week at school. 

Before this point, I did not hike.  The boots I wore that day, purchased in seventh grade for the class camping trip to Stokes Forrest, still needed to be broken in.  For the next week my mother exclaimed continual surprise that I had trekked through mud and snow for the better part of an afternoon.  She was even more surprised when I began hiking on a semi-regular basis, most commonly along the trails of the reservoir.

My place at home looks very similar to the place I left behind at school over spring break.  Like the garden, a good portion of the reservoir remains untraveled, its ice-particle snow reaching near the bottom of my knees.  Like the garden, most of the trees and plants lay dormant.  But, if you look hard enough, you can still see some signs of green.  Some signs that most everything will soon return with color and warmth.  

As Matt led my roommate and me around the reservoir this past week, he recounted for her a number of tales from his childhood in these woods; tales very similar to those I heard each time he led me through the trails.  His own personal folklore, Matt shaped each tale in time for a number of land maker.  And along the way we came across history of other travelers, a history we can only hypothesize about.   

Some more self-explanatory….

….than others

This tangle of trails intercepting a basin of water is so seeped in folklore.  The tales I learned from Matt along with stories I may never have the opportunity to learn.  But the tales I learned are different from those my roommate heard and different still from those you might be told should you ever come across my reservoir.  And that’s what so great about folktales, the oral tradition.  The same story can be told countless ways based on when we tell it, who we are with, how long it’s been since the tale originated. 

And that’s what The Oak Ridge Reservoir is to me: the place where I first became aware of the countless folktales to be discovered and created in the natural world.

Travel Advisory

Yesterday, Savannah was 70 degrees, in the sun at least.  And on the concrete steps of Ellis Square I drank my peach sangria—in a to go cup of course—and watched children, adults, and dogs run through the syncopated fountain show.  Yesterday, my cheeks became red and my shoulders looked a little less ghostly.  Large groups of pub-crawlers in varying green t-shirts took their time solving clues on what can only be described as a St. Patrick’s Day scavenger hunt through pubs across downtown.  Nobody seemed concerned the event was taking place about two weeks early.  They sauntered around sporting giant green hats and ties, orange-feathered boas, and special green plastic mugs.  A live band played near the edge of the City Market at the perfect volume to not turn a conversation into a yelling match.  Yesterday I skipped right over spring and soaked up the summer atmosphere. 

Even around 7am this morning the cool air was crisp and fresh.  I did not need to huddle inside the hotel lobby and make a mad dash for the shuttle once it arrived, but rather chose to wait outside and enjoy my last moments with the remnants of warm air.

Two plane rides later I faced a very different cold air.  The kind that seizes your lungs and makes your nose run.  Snow saturated my shoes and my chest stung as my shallow breathing struggled to keep up with my long strides.  The dry air scratched at my clogged sinuses and deepened the cold I already had brewing.  Yesterday, all I wanted was my sunglasses and some ice cream.  And today?  Well today all I want is large amounts of tea brought to me while I disappear into a mound of blankets.  The feeling of skin-baking warmth is quickly becoming a distant memory. 

While I have been known look towards future season with desire, I can still appreciate each season its proper time.  I don’t hate snow, in fact I like it for the most part—the giant clumps of flakes catching in my lashes though I try to catch them with my tongue, the quiet glow of the streets at night, and of course sledding.  But enough is enough.  When I left Pittsburgh Wednesday for the Sigma Tau Delta international convention, I didn’t even really need my winter jacket.  I grabbed the long plaid pea coat out of habit rather than necessity.  And my scarf was brought along as more of a travel pillow than a means of staying warm. 

I am not mad at the snow or the fact that it’s cold in the middle of winter.  I’m angry at the inconsistency.  This rollercoaster of erratic temperatures is making me dizzy, and apparently clogging my sinuses.  But evidently this is to become the norm of future winters—dressing in two sweaters, wool socks, scarfs gloves and jacket one day just to contemplate if enough snow has melted for it to be acceptable to wear flip-flops the next.  

The weather is a dirty tease.  She gives glimpses of spring—a field of grass here a patch of sun there—just to cover it all up with pounds of snow.  And tops it all off with piercing wind for good measure.  Weather is a sadistic creature. 

But maybe I’m being dramatic, maybe I’m just jealous of Savannah’s day in the mid 50’s or when I learned on my brief layover Charlotte was in the high 60’s.  Maybe if I give the outdoors a bit longer of a chance I would re-acclimate to the screeching winds and the slush-covered boots.

Maybe.

But I don’t think I’ll abandon my Earl Grey and oversized comforter to test that theory out.

Muddied History

This week I had every intention of writing on the history of my place: how it came to be, what the future holds.  I went through all the motions: met with one of Mortar Board’s faculty advisors, took pages of notes in my tiny journal while I listened to plans and stories.

Information in hand I arrived at the garden while the longer lasting sun began to sink.  I hopped over puddles to stand on the now exposed mulch they piled on the path before the heavy snowstorms started.  Even in today’s Fall/Spring weather the pathway still feels frozen. 

So I stand on the frozen-maybenot-mulch covered trail and consider history.

History…..

           

            History…..

                       

                        The history of this place?

                                    The history of this place within the history of Chatham.

                                               

                                                            The history of Chatham?

                                                                                                History……

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                            History…..

Right now the consideration of history feels about as muddy as the melted snow-soaked lawn in front of me.  I balance on my left leg and tentatively tap my right Minnetonka clad food against the muggy ground.  Though I hope for a

tap

tap

is instead I get a

squish

glop.

                                                                                                                        Squish

                                                                        How did the garden get here?

                                                            Glop

            What will become of this garden?

And just like that the ideas about history fall under my moccasin, which squishes them into the goopy, grass bits.  Like the ring a scorned woman of a sappy movie throws to the storm.  Or my dog’s favorite toy she forgot outside when called in for the night.

I suppose if I swam in lakes as a child I might compare the mucky lawn to the water’s ground.  But I had—and still have—an aversion to lakes. 

It’s not the idea of the floor, squishing beneath my bare feet.  In fact, I run through lawns on muddy, summer days.  A slip in my step with toes curled as they kick and flip clods of dirt to the back of my calves and thighs.  With excited screams drowned out by the thunder my friends and I try to out run, flip-flops in hand. 

            No, It is not the feel of the ground between my toes, but rather the in ability to see my toes.  The uncertain murkiness of the of the lake’s water.  I can’t watch whatever watches me.  I step blindly towards monsters that snap, stab, and slither.  The debris that never settles, camouflages the world below. 

            This fear is not irrational.  At too young an age I was sent to Lake Rickabear, a Girl Scout Day Camp.  Where swimming lessons in the questionable lake were not a suggestion but an enforced requirement.  I wasn’t too keen on the idea from the start, but the day a snake stealthily swam beneath camp-goers for a day on the beach, I completely gave up on lakes.

In long, I suppose, I dislike lakes.  But it’s not just lakes.  I never venture into bodies of water farther than I can see my feat.  Lakes, the ocean, or rivers, I often tread water at a V to keep my feet in view.  Why are my feet more important than my ass?

The muck can grab me either way

                       

                        Pull me back to the goopy grass

                                   

                                                Where my foot muddles the history

                                                                                   

                                                                                    With a squish and a glop.

I’ll leave this idea of the garden’s history hidden in the mud

 and wait for the debris to settle. 

Raindrop Races

How much can I write about snow?  It seems every time we get a glimpse of green and warmth it gets smothered in a parfait of ice and snow.  Just Friday I hopped over puddles and felt too hot in my winter jacket while I ran errands around Squirrel Hill.  And now, today, I wake to the sound of plows clearing a fresh cover of snow from the parking lot outside my apartment window.

Today is Sunday and, lately on Sundays I’ve started to wear my glasses rather than waste a new pair of contacts.  This takes a little getting used to each weekend since my contacts prescription is a -5.00 and my glasses a -4.50, the level my eyes were about four years ago when I bought the frames.  But I have no idea what exactly this means other than my inability to distinguish details of items more than six inches in front of my face without either as a filter.

Normally this difference in prescription is fine, I squint a little more and rely on my peripherals a little less.  I don’t drive even though my eye doctor tells me I’m able to.  And aside from the time spent in my natural place I don’t often leave the apartment.   

Today, however, as I walk the route to the garden it is snowing.  A light dust that falls in slow motion.  It clings to my hair like the stuffing of my patched-up down comforter.  It hits me out of trees as though we are locked in a one-sided snowball battle.  Buries my tall witch hazel like one of the low-lying ferns.

Mostly the snow is attracted to my glasses as though they were the windshield of my dormant SAAB (which is currently buried in 16 inches of New Jersey snow).  Whether I’m walking the path or still and observant, the clumps of snowflakes gather on my smudged lenses.  The warmth of my face creates a defroster effect that causes the clusters to melt almost immediately.  I am left looking through a warped window, the kind that looks as though it might be made of liquid.  The little bulbs on of the witch hazel seem magnified while the twigs and trunk seem far away.  If I wait long enough before cleaning my glasses on the sweater hidden beneath my jacket, my surroundings completely disappear.  I am left to see the world as I would from the back seat of my parent’s Volvo in the rain.  The passing background is gone in a misted blur.  I focus my eyes on the racing drops, betting against myself on which will reach the bottom first and internally cheering for my winner.  This race is much shorter than those down the car’s window yet no less exciting. 

This doesn’t happen when I walk through the rain in my glasses, with my head down I can usually make it through the weather without needing to clean them.  But in the snow, it doesn’t matter where I look, the swirling crystals are attracted to the lenses.  They find their way through my scarf and hair, around my bent head to where my glasses slide off my nose.

The promise of warmer weather later in the week doesn’t fool me, I know there will be more snow before spring is here to stay.  But in the mean time I’ll have to work on more ways to talk about snow.

Identification

            I know everyone has noticed and even bee affected by the layer of ice covering, well, everything.  For me it means shuffeling across the untouched lawn to the stomach dropping cadence of shuffle shuffle slipcrackcrunch. 

Shuffle shuffle slipcrackcrunch. 

            And that’s only on the steps my feet actually make an impression on.

            But I am here on this hand seizing, lamp-lit night with a purpose: Identification. 

            With the National Wildlife Federation’s Field Guide to Trees of North America in hand I face the frozen garden.  To be fair, I cheated.  My roommate, a Biology student with a preference for plants and bugs, pointed me in the right direction earlier in the week by listing a few of the plants.  I stopped listening once she mentioned witch hazel.

            Witch hazel.  How could I not have noticed the witch hazel? 

            My relationship with witch hazel has been rather muggy over the years.  The first bursts of yellow nearly blended in with the siding at the front of my house.  But they were there, stealing the sun out of the sky to turn into flowers.  Stealing summer to replace it with fall.  Exchanging my freedom for a structured school week. 

            My roommate didn’t tell me which corner each plant resided in, but with the field guide, and my memory, finding the witch hazel was simple enough.  Three plants caught in the middle of shrub and tree stand proudly in the back corner of the garden.  They were not planted here out of coincidence, but because witch hazel prefers the shade and this portion of the garden is continually overcast by the towering brick wall. 

            These shrub-trees are not the frozen skeletons I see in the distance.  Their limbs are malleable, and covered in soft mustard brown polyps.  The field guide shows me an example of immature capsules, but these look more like bouquets of bean sprouts.  These are the opposite of immature capsules.  This is what’s left behind when the last of the spidery flowers have fallen.  Because this is witch hazel’s autumn.  While the trees in the distance have long been sleeping these shrub-trees are just settling in.

            The flowers appear after the less recognizable leaves have fallen.  From what I know after years of watching the transition of my backyard’s weeping cherry blossom, this plant works backwards. 

            But back to the leaves.  I can only go by the description and picture in this field guide, which show me an asymmetrical fan in a deep green.  Though less recognizable than the spidery, yellow flowers, these leaves are what witch hazel is cultivated for.  Brewed into a tea or turned into a commercially available astringent, witch hazel is used to calm sores, bruises, swelling, and overall un-wellness.  At least for some. 

            My mom always had the perfect remedy for any sickness.  Homemade ginger tea, disgusting cough syrup disguised in Gatorade, and of course chicken noodle soup.  So, having a panic attack at sixteen, I didn’t question her judgment a when she placed a washcloth soaked in witch hazel (the kind from the store) on my forehead.  She promised it would sooth me while I relaxed on the living room sofa.  The smell stung my nose as it filled my sinuses.  My head spun and my stomach dropped.  Every breath I took ripped at my throat while the sour taste clung to my tongue.  I threw the cloth on the table and made it to the bathroom just in time for what little dinner I managed to eat to vacate my stomach. 

            I return to my apartment with a small twig of the witch hazel to help with this week’s writing.

            “This is the witch hazel right?” I show the piece to my roommate.

            She examines it closely before bringing it to her nose.  “Yup.  Didn’t you smell it?”  She holds the twig out to me.

            I take a step back but the memory is already stinging at my nose.  “No thanks.  I’ll take your word for it.”

            While some might look to witch hazel for a remedy, I’ll continue to admire the bright sign of fall from a far.