Barely Controlled Chaos
A garden and the state of our union.
It rained a whole lot in early June and my garden is truly splendid this year. I don’t say this to brag, because plenty of avid gardeners might find my aesthetic bonkers. I’ve enjoyed visiting gardens with trim lawns, tidy well-pruned shrubbery, and elegant perennial beds in which flowers are arranged from tallest in back to smallest in front and color palettes have been well planned.
I’ve mostly rejected this approach in favor of barely controlled chaos. Inside our home I appreciate order, but outside my aim is to create an abode, a space where I can chill with a book and creatures can find refuge.
I find that barely controlled chaos tracks with my life as a graphic designer and writer. Much of my strongest work is the result of happy accidents. I’ve read gardening books and newsletters, and taken notes when I’ve met professional gardeners, and then I’ve taught myself by trial and error. I move plants here and there just as I move type and images and words and sentences. I’ve had notable failures using this method that have made me weep in sorrow and frustration (more so in my first gardens), but the successes bring me the simplest joy I can create in my heart during this terrible time.
I want a bit of nature where birds, bugs, squirrels, and chipmunks can enjoy a visit. I also like cute bunnies as long as they aren’t eating the buds from my coneflowers. Inspired by several books and articles about the eco-damage of monoculture lawn grass, I planted a clover lawn just for them. There is almost nothing more adorable and heart-warming than watching a bunny chewing on clover. These scenes remind me of countless storybooks I loved as a child.
Friendly catbirds nest in our shrubbery. I had a meow conversation with one the other day. S/he dropped a nesting twig to keep up their end of the chatter. I didn’t know till recently that these birds are talented mimics. They wake us up early in the morning and as the day wanes and the air cools, they come out again to enjoy our all-you-can-eat feeder buffet and the bugs and worms that live in our soil. I saw a hummingbird from my office window drinking nectar from an orange and pink honeysuckle bloom. My office has a door into the garden, so that when I need a break I can step out and pull up a few weeds. I’m in and out a lot and yesterday I spotted a praying mantis on my office wall—it must have followed me inside. I brought it back out and it scurried away, instantly camouflaged.
I grew up in an apartment in New York City. No gardens anywhere nearby. Then, after my paternal grandparents died, my father inherited enough money so that my parents could buy three acres in northwestern Connecticut. My brother and I were little kids as the small house was constructed and this is where my parents gardened. They put us to work weeding. At first, this felt like a boring chore. My brother and I preferred bagging clots of frog eggs from a small pond so we could watch them hatch or mixing up delectable stews from twigs and leaves. But as time went on, I began to enjoy the work. For a city kid, planting a zucchini seed and watching it sprout and vine was nothing short of a miracle. My mother taught me how to prune roses, how you have to go hard if you want flowers. My dad took charge of our compost bin and the results also amazed me. Carrot scrapings and apple peels, eggshells, and green weeds transformed into brown soil. Now Clark, who grew up in the Wisconsin countryside and majored in microbiology at UW Madison, has taken charge of our compost and I’m still thrilled by the speed of decay. The natural soil in these parts is clay and small round pebbles, but we have improved this barren substrate fertile in just a few seasons. I don’t grow vegetables since we are surrounded by farms that do a better job than I ever could, but occasionally a squash or tomato seed sprouts, all part of the chaos.
What I’ve made is fragile, and I’m reminded all the time of its impermanence. Our beautiful old maple could be destroyed in a winter storm. The water is rising. I’m trying to heed the advice of Candide, who after years of hardship, chooses to narrow his focus to his own garden.
At the same time, I am trying to find balance and strength to resist growing authoritarianism where I can be effective. I was heartened yesterday by the excellent organization of our Columbia County Democrats who are pushing back on voter suppression by the Republicans who have wielded control for too long. We were a solid crowd, filling up every space in the auditorium. I’ll guess that the Columbia County Board of Supervisors Chair did not anticipate such a large and vocal turnout. He doesn’t believe in democracy but he got a taste of We The People last night. I put my design skills to use making posters, joined my fellow citizens, and for the first time in too long, the effort felt genuinely productive, like something might really grow and thrive in this time of crisis.
This past week we have all been shocked anew by the power of nature following the devastation in Texas. I’ve been in Texas Hill Country three times, but I never saw high water. Instead I witnessed three years of progressive drought. On my last visit, hillsides were brown and trees were dying and dead. I don’t know what will emerge in these next weeks as the story unfolds, what preparations should have been in place that might have saved lives or what will be done to assist those who have lost loved ones and homes. I recalled the mournful version of “Texas Flood,” as performed by Stevie Ray Vaughn. I wore a groove in that LP long before I had any idea of the landscape of central Texas and the rivers carving a path through it. Today I listened to the original recording by Larry Davis, who wrote the song in 1958. It’s a tragic song of stormy weather and broken love. Surely everyone who has played or listened to this song over the decades has understood the metaphorical connection between the destructive power of nature and its the human heart.
Unfortunately, as reported in the New York Times on July 11, those in charge of public safety in Texas didn’t heed the message.
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I work privately with memoir writers. You can reach out via my website: juliemetz.com.
I’ll be reading a story about my dad turning 100 at this storytelling event! If you are in NYC on July 29, I hope to see you there. All details below!
Beautiful, Julie. Thank you...