June 30, 2016

Rushing around to get things prepared for the Denver trip. I was away for, maybe, two hours, and when I returned . . . I didn’t know what I was seeing. My front gardens had been cut to the ground. Bare ground. The plants were gone. Every one of my tree peonies, most of my herbacious peonies, two of three native hibiscus, the whole stand of wood poppy, a whole stand of hellebore, all my turtleheads, all my lupine, lilies and dahlias. Gone. Gone. Gone. I thought it was vandalism until I realized the lawn had been mowed (and the pond covered in grass) so I called Nick–twice within a minute– to tell him what his crew had done. I spent the time it took him to drive from Leicester walking through the rooms of the house howling like an animal. It is so gratuitous. Yes, I know cities are bombed, airports are attacked, civilizations are ground into dust, but I had relied on the very smallness of my joys to keep them from the onslaught. I have said as many times as I could just the grass. Nothing else. How hard was that to understand? When Nick got here (with the two culprits who had done it) we figured out that the request to cut down the peonies at another house on Lakeshore had been translated to my house.  They didn’t see how I cared for and tended them? Why in the name of the dark gods would I want them cut down? The damage to the other plants resulted from the workers’ not knowing what they were doing. Everything with a deeply toothed leaf went. But also the wood poppies and the hellebores and turtleheads and– well, I have to stop. Why do you go into yard work if you don’t know one plant from another? In the end, the oafs were SO sorry and SO apologetic and SO willing to do anything to make it up, that I had just to shut my mouth. This did not relieve my fury, simply made it impossible to channel. I felt like God for a moment, confronted by unintended catastrophes, blameless atrocities. Nothing to do but shut up and go one. Unlike God, I have my own memories of stupid things I have done that people let me get over. So.  Nick is of the opinion that everything will come back. I don’t doubt that most will, but the month is dry and I am leaving tomorrow, and it is possible the roots will not get over the shock. Also, the tree peonies will not for another decade get their growth back. I stood over the bare bed with my hose, watering, feeling like Yavanna weeping over the ruin of the Two Trees. Unfortunately, I handle extreme stress by sleeping. I think I need a nap, and nothing that should be done is.  

As I watered the unruined part of my ruined garden, watched a great limb fall from my former sweetgum into my former backyard. Not a breeze.