Friday, June 11, 2010

Pink


An early memory: being lifted by my father so that I could reach down to touch the blossoms of a pink flowering almond in his garden. (Any pink flower still puts me in a swoon, I admit.) My father -- a Bostonian transplanted to the "wilds" of the Pacific Northwest -- passed on to me his love of gardening, and my entire gardening life has been spent attempting to replicate his flower garden, which I hold in memory as the ideal place, my own flowering Eden. And although memory is an unreliable and often a product of imaginative invention, what I recall are flower beds with not a single bare spot -- a continuum of color and blossom which took root in my three-year-old consciousness and has continued to grow and flourish for decades. I possess a hazy, black-and-white photograph of him pushing his tiller in his vegetable patch, but none that show off the abundance of his flowers. Upon his death in 1966, I vowed -- at the ripe age of nine years -- to continue his legacy, beginning with assisting my brother in the upkeep of the half-acre yard, and a few years later, with my own patch of vegetables and flowers, seeds ordered from the ubiquitous Burpee Seed Catalog, which arrived inevitably in the midst of our single annual snowstorm. That early garden makes itself known at least once a month in a dream, and with it comes the urge to break new ground, once again.

8 comments:

  1. People who care about nature, flowers, and the food they eat, are people you can trust, rely-on, and respect. This conscientious elite should be 'ruling' the world!

    Greetings T. Bisou, Cro.

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  2. Cro, what a thoughtful comment! Many thanks! 'Bisou' back-atcha!

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  3. T., a lovely post. I love memories like this...

    I followed your lead and went out into the yard to photograph some of my pink blooms. And then I posted. I give all credit to you!

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  5. I LOVE your new template and colour! Have just been to brown of the same; nice design, plenty of space. And your header pic is so beautiful!

    I've never been a 'pink person', can't wear it but adore flowers of the colour and have many around here; azalea, camellia and rose. How special that you think of your father and pink.

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  6. T, it is very sad indeed to lose one's father at such an early age (mine died when I was eleven). But those magic early memories DO keep our daddies alive and well in a little girl's heart and soul......mine would let me stand on top of his feet while he danced me around the room. Oh I loved it!

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  7. Thanks, Alaine! The rose on my header is the single blossom from a bush in my garden. I had it in a vase on my dining table all week, and now the spent blossoms lie in lovely abandonment amidst the morning paper.

    Ima, yes, we treasure these memories, don't we? xxoo

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