Black Thumb

I guess I never thought I'd have a garden

.

because I froze the very roots of everything I tried to grow when I was younger

and rotted so many plants dead that I gave up hope I'd ever get the sense of what they needed

enough to give them a fighting chance....

Thank God for pothos plants

and for succulents -

they are so forgiving of hands both heavy and light

that I found the faith I needed to dare drop seeds in the ground

.

and as I watch these beets and cucumbers and tomato plants thrive

under my care 

as I pluck the Leaf Miner egg cases off of the greens

like a nurse

as I work and breathe in the wet soil 

I smile to myself

remembering that 

I thought I'd never have a garden

.

If you had asked me when I was 28 I'd have told you I would not have a child.

I sat my mother-in-love down and told her so to break her heart quickly and be done with it.

To burn the wound clean and clarify.

I sure did like my friends' kids.

I had great memories of being a kid

but

motherhood was not in the cards for me,

black thumb-bearer

musician

and maker of things

.

I had found my happiness.

I had staked out my claim and my future was a wide and clear desert sky

with no tethers beside loving a man who understood my need to take off 

and go, with or without him at any time I needed to.

I did not need to bring a soul into this broken world to know its pain

or maybe to help heal it

I didn't have any desire to have my heart pulled wide and spilled out daily

to wander through a crowd wondering whose neck I'd need to sink my teeth into lest they harm my child

to be played like a cello

the most bittersweet song of pulsing life and imminent death

thrumming and aching through my cells every single second

like shut this thing off / oh no please don't touch the dial

I've never heard music like this before

It's so beautiful

and it hurts too much to bear

 people ask me why I am not writing songs anymore....

could anyone pick a melody out of this racket?

I'm hearing choirs of angels right along with 

cranking rhythm guitar and marching-band-bass-drums

every second of every waking moment.

Jesus.

Can I have a moment?

Some asshat at the back of the house would say "When he's 18!"

if I was on stage

and I would throw a tomato at them

in like a month when they're ripe

because I don't like that old schtick any more than all the mothers ever

.

There was just this day where suddenly I did want a child

with everything that whole shebang entailed

and so it was.

And it was and it was and it was

Until

Here he is now, not at all a baby anymore.

Capable of amazing conversation

if you're into trains, steam engines of all sorts, chocolate graham crackers, planes,

sparkling lights and tractors.

Counting to ten.

Kissing my arms.

Funny as all hell.

Perfectly selfish.

Learning manners.

Reluctantly sharing.

Rushing to be held.

Scaling medium heights.

Blowing my ever-loving mind daily.

Being my reason

.

I think it's important that we decide how things will be

as much as we want to 

with the understanding that it will not be so neat,

that life itself is so burly and overgrown

it practically muffles the perfect math of our plans

.

Standing in my yard looking at knee-high tete noir cabbage 

with my son I am both hugely grateful and tortured,

trying hard to let the gentle hush of the palm fronds

and the sweet jibber-jabber of a two-year-old 

go. 

Trying not to put the setting vanilla sun in a jar just so I can open it later

when there are other places he'll want to be.

Attempting to let the sweetness pass into chaos

trusting as we must

that all is as it will be

despite our plans, 

gardening

and 

otherwise

.

xoxoxo,

Sunny