Yellow finches perch in the bare gray branches of our black walnut tree like yellow flags. The patter of gentle rain falls in fat droplets onto the clay river ground. Everything is saturated. Garden chimes vibrate alto melodies over the constant hissing of the freeway, negotiating peace. A red tailed hawk calls out a piercing heartsong of longing from the damp Eucalyptus tree, waiting. The river is just a mile away beyond the freeway, pulled by invisible forces into the ocean. The finches form amarillo puff balls next to each other, watching me abandon my writing as the sun burns away the last bits of cloud mist.
I painstakingly prepare a seedling tray to grow some black eyed susans. They grow wild on Granny’s grave in the middle of nowhere, maybe it was Coyle or Guthrie, Oklahoma. It’s somewhere along a series of lost red dirt roads, the kind of place you had to know about to find. It was a sad day. But those black eyed susans appeared to me just as I was leaving. They seemed like the cheery cousins of sunflowers, her favorite flower. I allowed them to be a magical message from Granny, not unlike her admonition to eat my coleslaw, every bite. You must be grateful; you must know abundance when you see it. I plucked two susans from the ground and tucked them into my journal to memorialize the conjoined twins of love and sorrow.
I am going to grow the susans for the birds and the bees, and for me too. The simple joy of growing from minuscule sources is a new way of life in the time of COVID. I tear open a seed packet and stare into the folded paper square. The packet is completely empty. I check it three times. No seeds within. The glossy packet shines with the full image of radiant gold petals stretching from a black balled center. It’s not worth going back to Ace Hardware to get my $2.50 back. Perhaps a better way is to shake the packet and listen for the sound of tiny worlds shooshing against one another. When will I learn to trust my senses against the eye’s seduction? Take my lesson, eat my coleslaw, and grow on. I choose lime zinnia seeds instead, and press 7 dry wisps into the moistened seed tray.
Mom calls. She woke up late. The eucalyptus fills the air as the red tailed hawk flies away with her companion. She is 74 years old now and looking at life through involuntarily crossed eyes. She’s going to finish the baby blanket for a grandchild yet to be born. A jeweler’s magnifying lamplight makes the impossible possible. Any eyesight she has left will be woven into her grand baby’s soft white blanket. She tells a story about Dad recording the Apollo landing on the moon on reel to reel off the radio. We wonder where the reel to reel is now, if anything has been saved. There’s nothing to be saved. A story comes and goes. We say, “I love you”, and hang up.
Dana Lee 