“And Mom tied herself to a tree so she didn’t tumble into the water while she planted flowers on the bank.”—Sandra Heska King, “The Heart Work of Eviction,” February 6, 2013, The High Calling
P.S. The line breaks work much better with 1-inch margins on 8 1/2-by-11. Darn you, WordPress!
VINCA
She walks outside to plant purple right on the bank, beneath the shade of the cypress tree. If she can get them in today, they’ll always flower. They will come back year after year, strew themselves wildly, cover her own grave. She’s waited for weeks, started the seeds indoors, ensured just the right amount of darkness. But for three nights in a row, it’s been warm enough. It’s time.
This will not work. This perfect spot with the morning sun is too steep. She inches at it with care. Slips. Scared, she stands up. She will find a way. Is planting flowers supposed to be this hard?
Into the garage, where he throws his tools. She digs to find that rope he uses to haul stuff. Fumbles with the itchy old cotton cord, making a bow. Every childhood Sunday before church, her mother said she tied her bows upside down. What if she gets stuck, like when they played with jump rope at recess back in kindergarten and she couldn’t get untied from the tree and worked the knot for forever until she finally got undone?
Never mind. If these flowers don’t get in the ground soon, there will be no purple! She wraps the rope around the thick trunk. Double-knots it, ties the only bow she knows. She braces one foot against the thirsty tree. She might fall in the dirt but she will not fall in the cold creek. She will not drown. She ties herself up. Once secured, she works quickly. The bank will be beautiful — lilac, violet, pink, rose, white, maybe even peach. She sits back, pulls at the bow
Stuck. She sits in the dirt, starts in on the loops with her fingernails. She is exceptional at untying knots. The soon-to-be flowers wait for this woman to get out of their way. Eventually she is free. She reties the rope in an upside-down bow, walks home. She knows how to attend to things that seek to sever their own roots. When she is old, she will look on these flowers through her bedroom window, see how the groundcover spread so naturally, like all things mildly invasive.
This is marvelous. I can envision the bank along Big Creek smothered in blooms. I don’t know what my MIL planted, but the weeds and natural cover have invaded. And sumac. I love sumac. There’s so much in those last couple lines especially, and the part up top–about how they’ll cover her grave…
This has made me smile–and made me a little teary, too.
Me, too. I smiled and felt a little teary, both.
The flowers “wait for the woman to get out of the way” as so many things do. I need to remember to do my task, the best I can, then get out of the way, let things take their course. Trust.
I felt right there in this, btw. Slipping then, scared, standing again. Oh, so much here taking me off in different thought directions. Thanks for starting my day with this, Megan.
“…like all things mildly invasive.” This is so full of wonderfulness, from its source of inspiration to those very last words! Smiling so big here.
You have a way of weaving little golden strands into your writing that makes everything sparkle. I do love the way she tied her bows.
I loved that line from Sandra’s piece, and then you did all this! The way we are weaving together on this big ol’ interweb…we are reaching out to one another, roots intertwined, blooming in colors like that ground cover.
You’ve planted something beautiful here.
Last two lines kill it, Megan. (I mean that in an awesome way).
Megan, Megan, Megan–you just slay me with the way your mind works. In a really good way
Oh, this is so wonderful. Thank you, Megan. I’m way behind on blog reading and trying to play a little catch-up tonight. SO glad I did.