of my morning… not much
else going on today… I feel good and figured that there was far too much doom
and gloom in the world for me to add to it… I like getting up early
I woke up early this morning and wandered the house in the dark. I had to
take odd steps in the hall to keep the creaking floor from waking Stefanie,
but I managed to get to the kitchen and then out the back door without too much
fuss.
Outside it was humid and cool and the overcast muted sunrise made
everything seem just that much greener. I slipped on my
shoes and stood outside in my sweats and a t-shirt.
Two months ago I’d have had a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in
the other… I quit smoking a few weeks ago and
I was too lazy to fix a pot of coffee… I could still feel the familiar
sensation and even checked the pockets of my sweats for a lighter and my smokes…
smoking is far more of a comfort addition than nicotine any day…
I tucked my fingers beneath my arms and walked cross armed around the yard as
I took in the new shoots and flowers, some new dill was starting to peep out
of the same pot in which I’d planted oregano… damn. I’d have to re-arrange
that one - hopefully without killing either one.
I have three rose bushes that are starting to bloom. One, a climbing rose
that’s practically gone wild, was covered with purple-red blooms and it’s
spectacular - despite the wild looking flowers. The rain last night weighed
them down and most of them drooped from the weight.
The other red climber was near the corner of the house and it only had a
couple of full red blossoms above odd, pale green leaves… I wondered if there
was something wrong that would cause the leaves to be so pale.
But the last one was a prize. This one was a pink, Queen Elizabeth climber
that hadn’t bloomed in two years or more. I’d bought it originally seven
years ago and it sat in it’s original pot on a cookie sheet for a year in
the first apartment, its single pale and sickly shoot
stretching in an arc across the wall eagerly catching unwary visitors with its
thorns… the second year it sat beside the unused fireplace in our second apartment - I was told by my roommates that it was to go in a
place that they would be less likely to get caught by it’s sinister spikes.
By this time the cookie sheet base was a rusted mess - but remained beneath it
until we moved to a third apartment… where the odd,
determined survivor rose went into the ground for the first time.
We’d moved in late spring and I put it in the ground almost immediately. It
stood solitary by the open steps by the back fence, its eager thorns
constantly catching people- and most times drawing blood - fucker!
It bloomed for the first time that year, one single perfect pink rose
supported on a long, slender stem… I was intensely proud of it and I heaped praise on it as I pruned the rose
from it - then drew back a bloody finger from a vicious thorn- fucker! My own
price to pay for beauty, I suppose.
For the next few years it grew and changed - always growing toward the
sidewalk, always catching clothes and skin in its barbs. Everyone hated the
damn thing - I thought it was perfection.
When we moved to our new house I transplanted it - almost killing
it in the process and it took all of last year to recover, finally shooting up
new canes as it adjusted to the new home… but no blooms …
…Until this year... Already I’d noticed that there were more buds on it
than ever… six. I’d watched them as they went from tiny kisses that
puckered skyward with new crimson leaves to bulging pods slowly shifting to a
greedy shade of emerald. As I rounded our fence to see the buds that it offered
this year I saw a flash of pink through the leaves…
Three of them had shed back their leafy folds to reveal lipstick pink
buds on long, perfect stems… I moved around it, taking special care not to get
caught in the thorns, and leaned forward to smell the faint fragrance. Sweetness…
I beamed… they would be perfect… as I moved away from these; the wind nodded
the canes into my shirt. Of course, when I pulled back from it a thorn caught my arm deep and drew blood…
fucker…
…they will probably be in full bloom by the time I get home today -I’ll
need to buy some bactine before I start pruning...