deep in yellow

I spent the morning in the garden. I planted sunflowers.
When I moved into this house, I envisioned my favorite golden flower growing in the yard.
Determined to see the bold yellow I remember of my drives through Umbria, I painted my house yellow, and held on to the hope that I would see the blooms that inspired it.

I tried last year to plant them, but I made the mistake of sowing the seeds directly in the ground. I expected those dry shells to shoot roots down into the garden next to my bulbs and grow strong stalks along side the grasses and ground covers, tall enough to bear heavy brown centered blooms. I had to plant them somewhat shallow, or they seedlings might never have made their way to the surface. Most of them sprouted, but immediately shriveled up or fell over and couldn't grow tall enough to blossom. The little sprouts were too weak to brave the weather, and the roots and bases of the stalks weren't deep enough to hold the weight of the growing leaves. I had maybe two pathetic little flowers that lay on the ground to bloom.
I also planted bulbs in the fall, but although they grew and bloomed this spring, because I did not plant them deep enough, the stalks fell over and lay on the ground before blooming. Those bulbs will need to be dug up and re-planted. The stalks will take longer to grow next year, but the waiting will produce stronger stalks that will hold the blooms up off the ground. The effort I put in will be worth the larger blooms.

It's been almost four years since my separation, and over a year since my final divorce.

The first year after the separation, I focused on survival. I was still married; he just wasn't there anymore.  I tried to keep life as 'normal' as I could in order to keep a stable home for my children. We stayed in the same house, we went to the same church, and we kept our schedule as close to what it was before their father was arrested. My healing came in the form of dealing with separation, and managing life without another adult in the house. There was little that was apparent to my personal growth.  I was shedding pain and anger, but living one day at a time, nearly emotionally dormant, with nothing being planted for the future.

After a year, when I had pushed and prayed past the anger toward my former spouse, and learned to forgive him,  I made the decision - with the advice and support of a holy priest- to divorce and file a petition for a declaration of nullity.  I started noticing when people paid attention to me, telling me I deserved respect. I was beginning to see where Tom ended and I began- a line that had been blurred to me for the past twenty-six years.

I literally grew half an inch. Was I just standing up straighter?

I started sowing the seeds of personal growth. I was afraid to plant them too deep though, for fear they would just lay dormant and buried and so most of what emerged from the seeds was too frail when they broke through the surface. The relationships I tried to cultivate tried to bloom before they had strong roots and they either shriveled up, or fell over lifeless. I knew I needed to go deeper.

This year, I got wise. I took the time to plant the seeds in a starter box. I watered the seeds, covered them and left them to germinate. When the first seedling appeared, I uncovered them and moved them to a window.

 

I kept them watered, turned the box  when needed so the tiny stalks grew straight, and left them to grow.



 

Then I planted each seedling in rich soil, in a large pot, putting the pod deep into the pot, covering most of the stalk. Much of the growth was then covered up, and couldn't be seen. But the plants were strengthened by soil surrounding the stalks, and the depth of the roots.

When the weather turned warmer, I put the pots out in the sun, but I didn't plant the seedlings right away.

Only when the stalks were what I thought to be tall enough and strong enough did I transplant them into the garden. Then, I planted them even deeper than they were in the pots, making sure the roots had a good hold in the dirt, and the seedlings would have plenty of support for growing tall. I added more soil, covering even more of the growth of each seedling.

I've unearthed some deeper understanding of my former spouse's issues. This new understanding has brought me a great deal more empathy and even more peace. I also have more patience now for slow and steady growth.

The bulbs I dug up last year and planted deeper take longer to get the surface, but the stalks are strong, and the blooms are worth the wait. Maybe now they are deep enough to divide and multiply. The sunflower seedlings, though still smaller than the surrounding flowers in the garden, are growing straight and steadily. There won't be anything to show for the tedious work put into them for quite some time, but they show promise of an Umbrian garden, with tall strong stalks, deep roots, and lots and lots of happy, golden yellow.

 

funny Valentine

Champagne, a candy heart that says, "Let's kiss" and a red rose.
Candlelit dinner, soft jazzy music playing ....
I lean over my dinner..

....and laugh with my daughter who is sitting across the table from me.
Valentine's day has never been one of my favorite holidays. I have had two memorable ones. One was in high school when my friend, a local radio celebrity, heard me say that I had never had a boyfriend on Valentine's day. He showed up after my play rehearsal on the night of Valentine's day with a box of chocolates, flowers and a Valentine card that wouldn't fit through his car window.
The other was when I received a basket of live flowering plants and a card that tugged so much at  my heart strings that I can't part with it even if this man never speaks to me again, as it contains a prayer beseeching God to show me that I am worthy of being loved - a sentiment which I believed  for a while.

Up ahead on the beltway I could see that the traffic was bumper to bumper. The exit was clear and the service road traffic moving so I made my choice, and exited right.
Two miles later I was bumper to bumper with other cars on the service road moving more slowly than the beltway, and there I was fuming with my choice. About twenty minutes later, a firetruck approached me from the rear. I moved over, allowing it to pass by, but as I tried to regain my place in the traffic line,the driver of the sedan behind the truck not only lurched forward preventing my entry, but laughed at me and gestured antagonistically with his arms. 
Already feeling emotionally weak, I let his actions get under my skin and rattle me. However, I didn't let loose with the sobbing tears until I saw what the driver did at the next traffic light. This man, the same man who was not only rude to me a tenth of a mile before but looked me in the eye and mocked and laughed at me, put down  his window and handed money to a man standing on the corner holding a sign asking for help. I wasn't crying because a stranger was rude to me. I cried because of the memories this stranger awoke in my head. 
I spent twenty-five years with a man who could call me vulgar names until I was crying on the floor and then take his coat off and give it to a homeless man the same afternoon. Seeing how generous he was to others made me think that I was the problem. I knew he had goodness in him and wanted to be kind, so when he was unkind to me, I thought it must be my fault. I believed it had to be because of something I said or did that caused him to behave the way he did. Of course it wasn't my fault that my former spouse could not control his rage or his abusive tongue. I know that thinking I deserved it is neither constructive nor even true. But I don't yet have a new truth to replace the voice telling me I am at fault when things go wrong.  I am like a child who has learned a language badly, with mispronunciation and bad grammar.  I know what I'm saying is the wrong way to say it, but I have no one with whom I can practice the correct way and so I'm stuck speaking it wrong. No amount of telling me that the words I'm saying are mispronounced will help me; until I learn the language the way it is supposed to be spoken and have someone with whom I can practice, I feel like a bumbling fool, wondering what I said wrong, or what I did wrong that caused a relationship to end, or made a person walk away and how I can fix it.

I keep that Valentine card  in a drawer. Although looking at it from time to time and thinking about a time of being loved makes me smile, the words of hope that were once so meaningful to me are now simply printed letters, no different than rules of grammar of a language I am still trying to learn.  I think about my beautiful Valentine date, my daughter, and at times I just want to keep silent, and not speak at all because she is still learning this language, and I'm afraid she will pick up my mispronounced words and my bad grammar. I know it's my job to teach her the true beautiful language that is our mother tongue, but years of bad practice has left me mute at times and a cruel teacher at others. She recognizes the bad grammar, as I do. She also knows how it's supposed to sound, how it can beautifully flow from the tongue. I only hope that she hasn't heard so much of the damaged language that she won't be able to speak it when she finds her own Valentine, and that her card will be much more to her than a book of grammar to be tucked away in a drawer.