Simplicity reigns in my apartment at the Edge. I get up at more or less the same time, I eat breakfast in more or less the same place.
Familiar steps now, as each morning I do my early rounds to get the day going. Since it's still October, and Stage III of the Chopin Competition has just begun, I forgo listening to the news in favor of listening to Mazurkas and Waltzes played by this morning's contestants. There are twenty finalists and I hope to get around to hearing them all, though honestly, I am not able to distinguish at this point the finer qualities of one over the other, especially since I treat the music as a cocoon, a blanket around my day, rather than as the primary focus. I cast a glance at the faces, the hands that, without theatrics, still put emotion into each note, I smile, then move on to my next task.
Somewhat early in the day I drive over to the farmette.
I really want to put in some bulbs, but "want to" is far from "am sure to." I don't easily slide into garden work anymore. I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about the gardens' inevitable shift to a wilderness of weeds and saplings. And if I do nothing, will I be able to come by and witness it without emotion? Ed, of course, doesn't mind the changes, in the same way that he doesn't mind what has happened inside the farmhouse, but of course that's him, not me. Still, I don't want to bludgeon him with this issue, just as I don't really want to point out that the musty old farmhouse smell has returned, and the bare spaces show off their need of paint and a thorough cleansing. If anything, I want him to love what he has created for himself. I worry that at some point he'll just give up on the farmhouse and retreat back to the sheep shed, where he lived before I moved in with him at the farmette. I disliked that shed space so much (sh! dont tell him!), that I balked at spending any time there at all. In response, he had a separate shed go up -- the so called Writer's Shed -- so I could come down to my own space. That project stands unfinished and that's a good thing. It was poorly done and now that trees have overwhelmed it, it's downright gloomy inside. Is that going to be the fate of the farmhouse as well? Snowdrop said the other day that she hopes to sometimes have a wedding at the farmette. I did not want to burst her bubble, but I know that in another few years, no one in their right mind will want to have a wedding at the farmette.
I dont mean to imbue tragedy into the evolution of this land. When I worked alone in the flower fields, I would sometimes think about other secretive gardens I have come across in real life or fiction, most notably in a movie I loved from the first moment I saw it when I moved to the US as a young adult -- the Garden of the Finzi-Continis. There lies tragedy. In the book I'm still reading, the Director -- there lies tragedy. In the drama that unfolds right now as people's lives are upended in this country -- there lies tragedy. The farmette is more of a love story with a complicated plot twist. And no, I do not know its ending.
I put in two dozen bulbs.
(here are the ones that remain)
The soil is so very dry that it's hard work, so I stop and put off the rest for another time. (What other time?)
Ed and I go for a walk. There is never a walk together that we do not enjoy, even when, as today, it is full of words on the topic of why now and what now.
In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop.
Yesterday the kids were off from school. The district has a Monday staff day every four weeks, so parents are left to scramble then. The two I look after are old enough to fend for themselves while a parent works remotely. But today we are back with our normal schedule and the girl has her coveted quiet afternoon at the Edge.
(yes, Goose is large)
I return then to my Chopin. I think I listened to, at least in part, all seven contestants scheduled for this day. No, no favorites (though I must say, Hyuk Lee's playing of the Sonata in Bminor was heart wrenching; my Warsaw friend tells me that Hyuk and the second Lee in the program --Hyo -- are brothers and have lived in Poland for three years and have learned to speak Polish quite well... that's one way to get into Chopin's head!). I save my judgements for tomorrow.
with so much love...
