Reflections - Blue and Green

Blue and Green

Summer mornings I reach for the sky. Literally.

Lithe, yoga instructor Adriene directs from my iTablet screen. “Reach for the sky.”

I reach beyond the towering, ever-so-green, pines at the end of the deck and for the periwinkle blue sky. On one side of me, bumblebees buzz in the pansies growing in five, huge, plastic pots—holding up to ten gallons of soil. On the other side, Ande, our mostly white tabby cat, presses himself against the inside of the sliding screen door and mews requests for me to let him out.

Chickadees sing, Hey sweetie. Cardinals harmonize with cheer, cheer, cheer. A resident robin adds cheer up cheerily.

Yoga on the deck bathes me in the velvety calm that Miles Davis creates with his trumpet by playing "Blue in Green.”

This summer I needed to wrap up my morning writing asap and hustle out for yoga before the sun topped the trees on Porter’s hill. One day the sun’s rays overheated my iTablet. The black screen of death interrupted me in the middle of cat cow pose. I picked up the heated machine with an ouch-ooch and hurried inside. Ande scurried under the sofa. Fearing my fingers would melt, I set the fiery tablet on the tile by the door. The hot computer hadn’t singed my fingers, phew, and it blinked back on within ten minutes. From that day on, I placed the tablet in a deck pot’s shade.

Hot and dry dominated the year.

Delta Light Blue Blotch Pansy

Though Spence watered the pansies on the deck, their leaves browned. Their blue, purple, and amber, flower faces withered. 

I picked the drooping flowers, cut them into pieces, and sprinkled them in the food tray for the composting worms. Their castings, or poop, would provide fertile soil for future pansies. Nature’s cycle at work.

Heading out for our health walk during the third weekend in July, I glanced at the pitiful pansy stems—like burnt trunks sticking up after a fire cleared the woods floor. “What do you think about me buying geraniums for the pots, Spence?”

“I’m going to plant begonias.”

Not my favorite, but he liked the flowers, and he would take care of the planting. I could live with begonias.

I stretched by the dry brown pansy sticks. A few green leaves popped up at the bottom of the brittle stems. Then a few more. After a while, the pansy stems were masts in a sea of green. Weeds covered the surface of the sixteen-inch diameter circular pot—green under the blue sky. Nature provided a tide over until Spence had time to plant his begonias.

Eyeing nature’s garden as we set out for a health walk during the first week of August, I asked Spence, “When will you plant the begonias?”

“Begonias?” He screwed up his face as if he tasted a squashed ladybug. “Did I say that? I planned to transplant my tomatoes and peppers. I haven’t had time..”

Believing George Washington Carver’s wisdom, “A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place,” I watched our weeds grow taller and fuller. They didn’t flower. Perfect. I didn’t want them to seed. Their lush green leaves filled the deck pots. Blue and green accompanied my yoga stretches again.

Around the time the weeds grew from six to twelve inches in height, however, glancing at the healthy crop no longer calmed me. My shoulders tensed. Their roots would grow similar amounts under the soil. I didn’t relish the chore of wrestling with the entangled roots that filled most of the pot. Sweat formed on my brow at the mere thought of yanking the green  trespassers.

Weeds in Deck Pot

The evening of August 10, Spence banged pots in the kitchen. I lugged a bushel basket, trowel, and garden gloves to the deck. Ande scratched the sliding screen door. I pulled on the gloves, tapped the screen to nudge Ande off, and eyed the five pots. If I hustled, I could clear two before dinner.

Wrong.

I dug wide circles around stubborn dandelions and thistles as if digging root balls for evergreens. Once I finessed those weeds out and shook the loose soil off their roots, the smaller weeds, like ground ivy and chickweed, eased out quickly. Years of adding rich worm compost to potting soil had created a super mix. No wonder pansies thrived—in appropriate weather.

Under Ande’s screen-door supervision, I cleared all the weeds. Only rich brown-black soil filled the five circular pots. My trowel scooped through the soil as if I was scooping flour to mix pancakes. Weeds overflowed the bushel basket. A pair of crows cawed in the woods, and I toted my gear inside.

“I left a basket of weeds for your compost pile.” Heading toward the stairs to store the gear in the basement, I called over my shoulder. “The weeds are on the deck.”

“Great. I’ll move them later.” Spence flipped ground turkey in the iron skillet.

At the table, I said, “The pots are ready for your tomatoes. If you tell me how you want them transplanted—”

“I’ll get to them. I just haven’t had time.”

The bushel basket of weeds disappeared. Crickets chirped. With a background of blue and green and rich brown—in the pots—I stretched for the sky and inhaled the dewy morning air.

Lead safe work kept Spence busy. In his home office, he worked at his desk with the tabby cats sprawled on the guest bed. He also attended tenant events and meetings in Cleveland.

As August progressed, mornings chilled to the upper fifties. I pulled a sweatshirt over my turtleneck. Twisting for side bends, I gazed into the pots. No weeds invaded the soil awaiting Spence’s peppers and tomatoes. I inhaled a thankful yoga breath.

Morning temperatures dropped to the lower fifties. I added hospital gripper socks to my yoga outfit. Crow cawing replaced background melodies of songbirds and crickets.

The evening of August 20, I sat at my desk in the bedroom for a ZOOM class on writing short stories. Ande whimpered in the great room. A click-tap-tap sound floated in from outside. Jotting notes on emotional scenes, I forced myself to stay put rather than investigate.

After class, I found Spence on the great room sofa and asked, “Were you hammering? I heard a tapping while I took notes.”

Spence’s Janet-is losing-it expression flashed briefly across his face. “No.”

The next morning, juggling the yoga mat and my iTablet, I stepped onto the deck and gasped. 

Deck Peppers

In four of the five pots pepper plants stretched toward the sun. Some even sported fruit—inch-and-a-half long banana yellow peppers and tiny curled green peppers.

I hustled back inside. “You planted the peppers!”

“Yes.” He didn’t look up from his computer.

“The clinking sound must have been you tapping the trowel on the side of the pot to get the soil off.”

He looked up. “Right.”

“What about the empty pot?”

“There’re too many tomatoes to fit.” He tugged the end of his mustache. “I’ll think about where to put them.”

Green wisteria vines dangled over the empty pot. For most of the yoga routine, the pot was behind me. It could stay empty until spring.

Soon our crazy climate brought temperatures back into the eighties again. I left the sweatshirt and hospital socks inside. Inhaling the moist morning air, I stretched beside the green peppers under blue skies. Hover flies checked out Spence’s plants and landed on me. I swiped them off between poses. Beyond the deck railing, bumblebees droned in yellow touch-me-nots.

When Adriene’s cheerful voice instructed, “Spread your feet wide and raise your arms into star pose,” a buzz too loud for bees erupted.

Forgetting my focus on balance, I glanced toward the buzzing. The long beak of a hummingbird dipped in and out of the yellow flowers. A female ruby-throated humming bird darted straight up. Her golden-green back feathers shimmered like sequins against the chicory blue sky. And she paused to eye me for three precious seconds before zipping away.

I wobbled a bit and wondered—mouth open wide enough for pesky hover flies to explore—that the tiny female would be curious enough to stare at me.

Now that September has come, I’ll soon be stretching in the loft daily. Ande will collect pets from me when I bend forward, position himself underneath me when I stand in a wide-legged pose, and curl against me when I lay in rest pose.

But, while weather permits, I will imagine Miles Davis’s trumpet crooning “Blue in Green,” soak up nature’s blue and green, and reach for the sky.

 

Blue and Green