lelonopo.com
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I work professionally as a creative consultant but I mainly tweet about my pursuits as a domestic arts bad ass.
It's November and as the leaves fall from the Harlequin glorybower tree in our garden, the bright magenta calyxes and vivid turquoise berries become more apparent against the grey sky. Flocks of these invasive dirty birds descend upon the tree, gobbling up their fading fall beauty, the last show of color in the garden for the year. Not native to the United States, starlings were brought here by Eugene Schieffelin when he released sixty of them in New York City's Central Park. When I see the starlings devastating the beauty of my Harlequin glorybower tree, I throw up the windows and shout "dirty, dirty birds" and they fly away.
It was nice before, in my opinion, but I wanted to be a good neighbor and make walking by good for everyone. And you know, I saw you the other day," I said to her. I gestured to ripping and breaking while I continued, "I saw you breaking off our plants here in our garden, I want you to know I saw you, and I need to ask you to not do that again. The garden gives me enough of it to share with others, I'd just rather not do it through broken branches and lopped off flower heads, but instead through kindness, shared conversation, or a simple hello, neighbor.
When I begin to pull weeds and unwanted seedlings (aren't unwanted seedlings weeds, et tu brute? ) In the past, I've just given up and walked away, telling myself my garden is a cottage garden, meant to be imperfect and flouncy. Stay in your lane, stay present, stay right here with only what's in front of you." To feel the sunshine on my shoulders, the needed stretch in my tight lower back, and a life that affords me a work break to spend this time in the middle of the morning on a weekday in my garden.
Two weeks ago one evening, AdRi jumped from her chair in the living room and out the front door. Of course they didn't stop when she called out to them, and the fritillaria that was preparing to bloom was toppled and smashed, plowed over by their flying-through-the-air BMX bikes. Two kids were offering their services, door to door, for mowing lawns. We live on a corner, and beyond the garden, the only grass besides a small backyard patch is the unwieldy green mane in the front and side along the sidewalk.