Outside

Upon waking,
my brain retreats. 
I want
I want
to avoid the inevitable hopelessness
unenviable dread
that seeps through each beginning of each beginning of each day.
I try to lever myself
I try to pry myself
into the day,
but mostly I 
Resist
the pull of normalcy in favor of  my comfortable black murk.
On some days,
the sun reaches in and grabs me by the neck.
It's a best friend who refuses 
to watch me wallow when there is 
Outside waiting.
My legs are weighted by two-ton memories and
slowed
by thick magnetic mud.
I slog with the sun pulling my neck my arm my heart toward Outside.
If I can navigate this holy map,
make it to my front door, 
dragged along, then
a surfeit of,
glimmers of
a path appear
and grow exponentially into a widening view
of 
this bird
this tree
this weed
this flower
this shadow.
This air
replaces the grey fizz fuzz buzz in my head.
And makes me feel.
Alive.
Outside.
The doorway is my magical portal
but it has a combination lock.
I fumble.

#AccidentalPumpkin's Rules for Public Spaces

I checked my Homeowner's Association regulation handbook. Nowhere does it have a rule against having a gigantic accidental pumpkin growing in your front yard.

It's not a "public space," but it is governed by public rules.

I have gotten reprimand letters in the past for having a 2X4 leaning on my back fence and for having a broken fence after a storm.  (And when I was really sick, for having grass that made the house look like a crack house needed cutting.)

My neighborhood is unabashedly lower-middle class/middle class.  I chose it for four reasons:

---It was in my daughter's school district

---It was affordable

---It is racially diverse

---I am unabashedly lower-middle class/middle class. These are my peeps. I am their peep. 

I love it here.

The pumpkins I actually planted on my back deck have already died due to fungus.  

The #accidentalpumpkin lives on.

I think she is the weebaby progeny of my Halloween pumpkin last year.  

The townhouse right next door is abandoned.  The front yard has been overtaken by a mass of uber-prickly weeds that are far taller than me.

I could cut them down, although the barbs go right through my gloves.

But I choose not to, because the animals like the cover the weeds provide.  The birds and rabbits and squirrels, and who knows what else - they don't think they are weeds; they think they are a playground.  

I am sure the owner has received numerous reprimand letters.  It has made no difference.

Is this a public space?  Last year my Crazy OCD intense neighbor from a few doors down sprayed the weeds with some awful shit toxic chemicals.  I was so pissed off incensed.  The weeds are not even close to her freakin house.  And I don't use that crap toxic chemicals near my half run-down shack abode.  "She just couldn't stand to look at them anymore." Ironically, the weeds came back even stronger after she sprayed.  So we got have to weeds AND chemicals. #thankyou #karma

This accidental pumpkin has grabbed on for dear life to everything it can entwine. 

My yard is the size of a postage stamp.  The accidental pumpkin covers a significant portion.

When I mowed the lawn today, I planned to pick the vine up and trim under it so I didn't get another  letter from the HOA.  But it has grabbed onto the grass all along its length.  So I carefully trimmed around it.

I love this pumpkin.

I thought, "Perhaps I should put a little protective fence around it." 

The kids in my neighborhood like to roll down my hill while shooting Nerf darts at each other.  So maybe they would be more careful if there was a fence or screen.

Then I remembered.  These are kids.  If there is a fence, they will go through it.  If there is a vine, they will ignore it.

And so it has stayed. No fence.

I have never grown a pumpkin before.

I love this pumpkin.  And I am pretty sure it will actually be lots of #accidentalpumpkins.  If not, I have enjoyed watching it invade.

#AccidentalPumpkin's Rules for Public Spaces:

~If there is an exclusionary rule about the public space you want to thrive in, break it.

~Hang on for dear life. 

~Don't build a fence - they would notice.

~Plant seeds even when you don't know you are planting them.

~Exist happily next to the weeds.  They will distract people from worrying about you.

~Get lots of sunshine.

Deckadence

I sit decadently on my deck each night and eat the newest freshest peas right off the vine. To heck with acid rain, 
this is my version of organic. 
Nothing has ever tasted better. I made this food.
I chase it with a beer.

I grow things now.  I never used to.  I can't get past the addictive nature of creating something from a seed, food I can actually eat.  In my kitchen are jars of seeds, sprouts in pans, little tiny tendrils of nutrition.  I fend off the apocalypse for one more day.  Surely with these seeds, I can survive a while longer.  They are my mid-life babies, my menopausal offspring. They surround me with green when the world feels bloody gray and hopeless.

My deck is my sanctuary, my neighborhood not the best, the boards under my feet warped and worn, my grass not always trimmed the way the HOA would like, this is middle class, make no bones about it.  The cops who visit the courts don't see the irony of all of the "being in court" but they come here often anyway.  They are our entertainment through the windows as the crazy neighbor screams illogical nonsense at her boyfriend and child.  I am grateful for police diligence but allow myself to watch the craziness, that was me once, long ago, so I see both sides. 

I sit and listen, I feed my birds, I thrill in the bright yellow finches, the mischievous chickadees, the tiny chipping sparrows with itty bitty rooster combs that pop up at odd times.  
Right now it's fledgeling time; adolescent birds holler and beg their way through the day while patient parents feed them the seeds they could easily get for themselves. I like these mom and dad birds, the way they shield their children from the eventual reality for as long as possible.  


A robin has laid two clutches in my shed this summer, on top of a humane trap I used for catching baby stray cats. I love this irony as well, she chose the perfect spot, no predator can reach her chicklets.  She lets me see them, I anthropomorphize enough to think she trusts me. 

Here's my morning - feed the cats, make tea, grab a book, go check on the garden.  Examine each leaf while wearing reading glasses.  Add food to bird feeder. Sit on deck and read for as long as possible before life calls.

I have no hot tub, no expensive trips, but I can see the mountains from my deck, and things are growing.  Everywhere I look, I see green.  My neighbor cut my grass the other day.  My other neighbor offered me steamed crabs over the fence.  My neighbors are all colors, shapes and sizes. Make no bones about it, this is middle class.  Life is good. I choose this.