Growing

Nancy gave me a slender book called Seed Propagation of Native California Plants. It has a pale blue cover and yellowing pages, and it isn’t the most recent edition, but the information hasn’t changed, and Nancy thinks it’s a helpful one. She also ordered me a “grow-ease seed starter kit” from Gardeners’ Supply.

“It’s only if you feel like following through on this,” she said. “It’s up to you. No pressure.”

But she noticed how excited I get about the native oak trees we planted from acorns, and she has mentioned more than once the toyon seedlings she started, already poking through the soil in tiny plastic containers beneath a net cover in a certain corner near the house, awaiting careful transfer to larger pots stacked nearby, eventually to be placed in the ground.

“You can decide where to plant them,” she has said. “But only if you want to do this. Only if it’s fun.”

Then she found another book on her shelf for me about growing native plants, a newer one, “expanded and updated” with beautiful glossy pictures and detailed instructions. She mentioned that I shouldn’t put the toyon seedlings too low in the pot, because those roots will need room to stretch deep into the bottom.

And by the way, they’re ready to be transferred.

I cannot help but be struck by the irony that while Nancy is passing along the secrets and tools of growing things, she herself is fading. She’s ninety-five years old, was widowed two years ago after seventy years of marriage, and has always taken great pride in maintaining her autonomy and dignity. She adheres (some might say stubbornly) to her own rigid routines and customs, but it’s a familiar framework that steadies her and gives her life shape. She keeps an immaculate house, prepares meals according to a weekly shopping list and menu, and loves to work in her garden and tend to the orchard. Until recently, I often saw her sitting in the window seat, enjoying the warmth of the sun, reading a book, or listening to Mozart. There’s something brave about her.

Now, suddenly…really almost suddenly…she is diminished. One day there was a change in her. She was bewildered and disoriented, couldn’t find her words, wasn’t sure what she had been doing. She recovered from that episode, but she has since been in and out, expressing various manifestations of discomfort, unable to eat, and lately remaining in bed. I stood by her bedside a few days ago while she drowsed in a ragged sleep, unable to get a satisfactory gulp of air, and when she opened her eyes, she said, in a very faint voice, “I don’t know if I should try to tough it out.”

She’s been a remarkably strong person all of her life, but I wonder how much toughness she still contains, or how motivated she is to muster it up. A friend refers to this as the end-of -life waiting room, and maybe it is, but maybe she’ll get better. Who can say? On the other hand, she clearly isn’t enjoying anything at the moment.

And yet, above all else, she is a person who plants and beautifies and tends, a grower––and I feel she has bequeathed this role to me. It’s humbling.

So all day I have been thinking of beginnings and endings, of cycles and seasons. I am remembering when Nancy was young, putting in those macadamia trees, which were little saplings then, and her devotion to native plants, now arranged in a noteworthy landscape around her house, suitably rambunctious but splendid. I can picture her weeding and watering, pulling and replacing boldly when needed. I can see her clipping her roses, and gathering oranges and grapefruit, and looking up at the Channel Island Oak she planted twenty years ago, lovely in its lushness and symmetry, but still not yielding acorns. She is part of the terrain, with her white hair and blue sweater, her busy hands, and watchful eyes. She always will be.

“I’m sorry to be such a burden,” she said the other day. It’s very hard for her. This was my chance to say we love her, and we’re glad we can be here. But she looked into the distance.

Today has been unexpectedly hot, and thick with smells of grasses and blossoms, but now an afternoon wind has arisen and is trembling the treetops, and I’m going outside to see what needs doing, or maybe just to wander and think. Cycles and seasons, beginnings and endings. What words will linger? What deeds will have mattered? What plants will thrive?

Can I propagate a seed, grow something worthy? It’s up to me, I guess. No pressure.