My last garden
Maybe a new McMansion will push us away, looming over us and blocking the winter sunrise I watch from our living room, cup of coffee in hand. Maybe we'll decide to move near the kids, instead of visiting them for stretches.
Or maybe my husband or I will take a bad fall, making even the three steps to our front door insurmountable. Maybe that will be the moment we go.
My mother stayed in her house past the point of being able to disperse a lifetime of family photos, books and the rest. So, like Egyptian royalty, she cocooned with it all. Neat stacks of New Yorkers she 'intended' to read filled an entire bookcase in her bedroom. The 1940s Toby jugs she collected in Victoria, Canada, as a young Navy WAVE officer nestled, bubble-wrapped, in a closet, some carefully glued back together after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
So much 'sparked joy' for her, or at least a duty to preserve.
I'm determined to live lighter — certainly to die with less — and I have made some progress giving things away. But my husband and I struggle with the bigger decision of moving: knowing when and to where, that's the trick.
Our ruminations and the recent deaths of friends infuse our life here in Los Angeles with a preciousness which, as summer rises, centers on my small garden.
The Meyer lemons have ripened into big, juicy softballs. The Valencia blossoms have morphed into countless tiny green oranges. That tree predated us in this house and remains so prolific that in some years local food-bank gleaners have bagged 500 pounds of ripe fruit.
Jasmine flowers spill over our brick planters. The trumpet tree's exotic scent lures nocturnal moths into its bright yellow cone petals. Taking out the trash after dark sometimes feels like a visit to Bloomingdale's fragrance counter.
My night-blooming cereus, once a small potted plant, now the size of Audrey II from 'Little Shop of Horrors,' is on its third round of buds. Pollinators come calling as dusk descends and the 8-inch flowers languidly unfurl their white petals. Sometimes a dozen or more blooms open over an evening — like the Hollywood Bowl's Fourth of July fireworks finale, minus the '1812 Overture.'
Of course, I can buy fresh lemons and flowers wherever we end up living. But there is such quotidian joy for me in these lemons and those flowers.
I'm a negligent gardener. Rainstorms invariably seed a carpet of weeds; my winter lettuce bolts before I notice. Bare spots need new plants. I should spend a solid week out there, plucking, fertilizing and replanting. Even so, things mostly grow.
I would miss the trees in our 1948 tract. Jacaranda blooms a couple of blocks over dust cars and make a canopy of lavender. In fall, tiny yellow blossoms from the golden rain trees carpet our street.
Still, my husband and I are beginning to feel old here. Young families replace neighbors who've died or moved. Little girls in pink leotards twirl on their lawns. Halloween is a big deal on our street again. All as it should be.
Our fellow seniors, some longtime friends, still briskly walk the streets. But ramps for wheelchairs and sturdy railings have appeared on some front porches.
Local real-estate agents pester us long-timers to sell. Simplify your life, they helpfully suggest. Move to a condo or near your children before it's 'too late.'
I'm still upright, yet each year I feel the decision drawing closer.
The kids and young grandchildren live in the Northwest, which we love, and being there full time we'd be more a part of their lives. However, at our age, moving means giving up not just this house but, realistically, any house and, likely, a garden.
How I will miss my weedy little Giverny.
An older neighbor planted sweet peas every year so that the vines wound up her chain link fence. The spring after she died, her house vacant and her presence sorely missed, a mass of flowers reappeared, all color and delicious scent.
Whenever we move on, I hope the next gardener will delight in the magenta alstroemeria flowers that emerge every spring, unbidden. Or perhaps as the agapanthus blooms — those swaying lavender balls — knock gently against her family's car as she backs out of the driveway, she'll shake her head at the magic of it all.
Molly Selvin, a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and editor-in-chief of the California Supreme Court Historical Society's Review, writes for Blueprint magazine and other publications. This article was produced in partnership with Zócalo Public Square.
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