The gardening saga continues as I wait patiently for the seeds planted indoors to start. For a few days, the only things that had sprouted were the mustard greens, and watching all the rest of the trays remain solidly dirt, I started to feel a little discouraged. Perhaps I had not done enough research. Alas, a few more sprouted, and then I went away for the weekend.
I went to the Met recently to see Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and hang out with 3,800 very well-dressed patrons to see a passionate story about political tyranny but mainly to see the soprano Lise Davidsen who is worth the price of admission and more, especially when surrounded by the Met chorus, mostly men, imprisoned for political crimes but nonetheless in gorgeous voice. As for Lise, architects have designed enormous opera houses and finally they’ve designed a singer whose voice fills it so you feel it even in the cheaper seats.
The change of seasons always inspires me to do what my kids always refer to as “the purge”. Because I’m aware that I need to move the winter clothes out of the main closet and the warmer weather clothes back in, that means that it’s also time to go through everything not worn enough to justify keeping and finally get rid of those purchases that I wore perhaps one or two times.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about values. Not just as a word, but as an invisible force that shapes our lives. Values are the foundation of civilization, the unspoken contract that binds us together. They define who we are, not just as a society, but as a family. We stand for something. We believe in something. Without values, we are lost—adrift in a sea of moral relativism.
I’ve had an easy life, like canoeing down a river, one mile leads to the next, Tuesday follows Monday, obey the rules, portage around dams, don’t approach alligators unless their eyes are closed, and don’t argue with men with large eyebrows carrying shotguns.
I’ve fully committed to yet another year of trying to grow vegetables and herbs. Thus, over the weekend, I carefully went through all of the seed packets, and looked up all the information on starting each individual kind of seed, figuring out which ones need to be started indoors, and which need to be put directly into the ground.
This time of year, I sometimes think of the poem Pippa Passes (1841) by Robert Browning.
It’s about that time of year again where I convince myself that I can, indeed, grow a magnificent garden such as my grandma has always done There’s only been a couple of summers in my life where I actually accomplished this. Whether it be because the weather is challenging, or I don’t have a yard, or because I put in all the effort to plant everything and then became too busy to manage the plot of land that was clearly going to always be a challenge with weeds growing over because it was a first year till - there’s always been a struggle.
I once walked down Wabasha Avenue in downtown St. Paul and was stopped by an old wino who asked for something to eat and when I gave him a couple bucks, he said, “You’re Garrison Keillor, you can do better than that.” The man had bad habits but his thinking was clear. I was a nobody from Anoka who got his picture on the cover of Time and my notoriety should mean profits for the needy. But that was many years ago and fame fades fast. I haven’t been recognized by a wino for at least thirty years.