““How old are his kids now?” my daughter asked. I honestly didn’t know. “Is he still famous?” she said. I fumbled. “In his field, he is,” I punted. From where I sit, these designations take on less, and less meaning. But at one time, validation was surely to be measured by external accolades, and social recognition. However, tonight’s thunderstorm is sweeping up the notch, with a poignancy that collapses all those constructs, once deemed essential. Who cares? Who really cares. Neatening up a garden bed for a friend who’s son recently died, is more relevant. The barometric on this day has been fiercely confounding, maybe an excuse for why things seem off, but maybe the exact reason, why things should be viewed, as uniquely affected. Then factoring in, how insanely hard we worked, despite those conditions. Where is the middle road? Out my windows, sheets of rain are moving sideways, and trees limbs thrashing. Cold front meets warm front, lakefront, meets mountains. Who’s to say? If I’d had a Sawz-all yesterday, things might have gone differently. But sometimes the toughest fights, with the dullest tools, are the ones that best inform. The key word for me, this week, was ‘ambush’. I made appearances before zoning boards, pulled up plants abandoned by owners, went to work without having had any food. I gambled on my own dowsing abilities, to deliver seamless gardens, to far flung places, risking the censure of absentee owners. I dreamed of my singing self, the one I used to know intimately. And relied upon the generosity of friends, real friends, to see me along this path, of loss, and of non-conformity. When my truck broke down on the way to work on Tuesday, it felt in sync with the universal dysfunction. Without freaking out, we waiting for Triple A, and for Staci and Jennifer to pick us up, so we might continue on our way, to South Woodstock, to complete a job planned so many weeks in advance. Just down the road from Michael J. Fox’s former estate, we dug out 11 giant Hostas. The embankment where we transplanted them, deserved an upgrade. So lovely, to recycle these mighty shade dwellers. So what, that I threw out my back. I don’t care. I had so much variety this week, and righteous challenge, that nothing seemed rote, or boring. We went from hill country, to lake country, to the best view you could ever see from the bluffs above Lake Champlain. I heard so many new bird songs this week, it might as well be my next record. In all honesty, what we are living in, here in rural Vermont, is the soundscape of heaven.”
