Garden Party

What can one say about the arrival of in-laws? The usual intergenerational tensions erupt, issues of introversion-space invasion naturally occur. But when your spouse, their daughter, has departed this earthly realm...well, it is hard to know what to make of it all. And yet, arriving home at 9:30 PM, the lights in the upstairs flat are on. And I am on too. Wisely, I have left the door unlocked. The Tuesday night rehearsal of the Menlo Park Chorus had run late, the in-laws' flight had run early, so at 10 PM, here we are, sitting in my front room, looking at each other and trying to find the thread.

The thread has woven into a somewhat improbable fabric. Marlou's harrowing death would either make us one or make us several. We are now the former.
Instinctively, we steer clear of politics. But there is plenty of other stuff to talk about. And talk, we do. By 11 PM, in fact, the time has slipped by rather quickly. I head for bed, knowing that in the morning, I will head for Peet's with Dick and Joan at an early hour, then take a meeting...not that I take many these days. I am talking to consultants about the Menlo Park Chorus.

Do I really care about the Chorus? Well, I do, a bit. More important, Marlou cared a lot. So there are three of us, two arts consultants and me, staring at each other, stirring our espressos and making progress. When I think about it, and in this moment I am, there's much to be said for such contacts. This grows out of living in an affluent university town, being there for 30 years and just being. Being me. This is a difficult thing to say. Thank you for being you -- this message sponsored by your ego. Okay.
I have one. We all need one. And, yes, I feel good about these two arts consultants, because I know who they are, what they have done. And they are the finest of the finest.

I am exploring the possibility that money Marlou bequeathed in a convoluted way to the Chorus can get to its goal a little more effectively. Things wrap up, there is an exchange of cards, a targeting of objectives for the new year. Someone lightly mentions Marlou's ideas about community music. And I start to cry. This is really surprising, for the meeting appeared to be over. But grief isn't over, things like this keep happening, and though there is no need to apologize, somehow I feel obliged to say I am sorry. I roll off to buy RyKrisp, dry crackers for wet tears.

Lunch with the in-laws, paperwork, e-mails, some of the next-stage tasks for the betterment of the Chorus and damned if it isn't 2 PM. Through the front window, I can see Joan at work in the patio. She has volunteered to cut the dead flowers off the plants. Seated in a patio chair, she plucks away at the blossoms. I roll my wheelchair outside, come up behind her, and all is revealed...in that everything about the day has been leading here. To Joan, seated with her back to me, with nothing about her genuinely 83 years old, except aspects of physiognomy. She is telling me that flowers look so much better when the dead ones are removed. Things need sprucing up. A bit of garden tidying for the autumn. I had things to do this afternoon, but not now. There is some sort of quiet truth unfolding here, something I mostly try to escape. And I am meant to be here with it, whatever it is.

It's such a small space and not even mine. It wasn't even ours. Entirely rented. Nothing invested except care, attention and sense of place. And all of it happened after Marlou's diagnosis. The old cracked patio dating from 1955 was hopeless, so as with any ruin, the next civilization built atop its predecessor. Marlou spent an entire afternoon in Mountain View, California, buying bricks. The order was so small that we had to cut a special deal regarding delivery. A handyman laid the new bricks atop the old cracked concrete, poured dry sand and concrete between the cracks.
Marlou's cousin Betsy spent another afternoon with Marlou in additional suburbs buying plants. My brother and his wife, the cousin and Marlou, went about the business of planting. Although I may be wrong about the Marlou part. At that point, she may have been looking on fondly, more an observer than participant. Marlou never acknowledged her failing energy until she had to.

And now her mother is wondering about the ferns. Should she pull out the dead branches? What does one do with ferns? Well, well. Joan surveys her work. Her look is briefly sad. Abundant sentiment, little sentimentality.

She is not going to linger over this scene. I sense this scene is lingering over her. Which may be why she has, without a word, risen and headed for the vegetable garden in back. It's fallow now. Nothing happening, except the cover crop. I have asked Joan to help me transfer sprouting fava beans from one bed to the other. I tell her, keeping up a line of chatter over the prevailing tragic circumstance, how the cover crop works. Fava beans send down long roots. Oh, she says, to break up the soil. I don't know what we're talking about. Joan transfers a few seedlings, and I call a halt to the proceedings.

To some, grief is a series of small tasks. No words, or very few. Just the right gestures, in the appropriate space. Doing without overt attention. Attending to things. Nothing will end this day except the day itself. Shadows lengthening, we collect our rusty garden tools and head inside.