Once in a Life Time

I worked at this nursery, Bittersweet Hill, when I had just turned 20. The woman responsible for this particular garden lived in a cabin in the woods on our property. She was 26, gorgeous, had long blond hair, and wore her passion for plants on her sleeve. She got me the job working here; it was a dream. I had newly shaved my head, still awkward, a virgin to the adult world, and God led me here. The owner is who I dedicate this blog to: Hildreth Morton. Hildreth married a judge, who was never faithful, owned the social scene in Annapolis, and is one of the most fascinating characters I had the pleasure of hanging around for a short while. She was beautiful, even at 85, and so smart. At 85 she was walking the half acre of the nursery (always accompanied with a big, curly haired dog) working every day to share her love of plants with anyone around. This woman was saucy: her favorite words when she was angry was, "Oh mother fucker, shit damn it!", as if it was all one long loud word. Nearly every day she left us after lunch to drink whiskey. People often found her in her Norman Rockwell type office asleep on the desk with a stack of letters and phones ringing. She always pretended to be resting though, and she would get right up like she had the energy of a 20 year old and take care of business. What I loved about Hilthreth is she was such a show stopper. She had an herb festival every year, wine flowed, and people drove from out of the state to hear her lectures. How to prepare wine bowls with eatable herbs, what water plants look best in what pond, etc. She would work the crowd like a Hollywood movie star (but with brains), charming everyone she saw. She could work a room of people like a charismatic politician. Her favorite thing to say to me (when she finally warmed up to me she decided to take me under her wing) was: "Rose presentation is everything. It's not so much what they do see as what they don't." Like the dirt on a vase. Or like in my life now: the smudge on my refrigerator. Every day she cut a red geranium and placed it behind her ear. She still dyed her hair black, and with the red geranium and the passion in her voice, she became an eccentric legend. I loved her work ethic, her unique brain, and that she worked for everything she had. She never cared that her husband was not there, because she was too independent and quirky to let any bastard get her down. She drank herself into a heart attack last May, and this nursery is closing. At the age of 20 I learned more from her then anyone since, in a certain way. When you see a red geranium think of her, or people like her, who over flow with life and leave us as better people.

Ambrose turns 25 today

Here is a link to his webpage:

http://www.latona.us/amby/

I love the man.

A Quote

This is the last monologue from the movie, "No Country For Old Men".
It's the telling of a dream a man has for his father, who has died:

"The second one, it was like we was both back in older
times and I was on horseback goin' through the
mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the
mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the
ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never
said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he
had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down
and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire in a
horn the way people used to do and I could see the
horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of
the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on
ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out
there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew
that whenever I got there he would be there.  And then
I woke up."

Now there is nothing in my brain that
allows for a belief in an afterlife.
But usually the death of Ambrose and the death of Katlor
would make me want to join them.
But I thought came to me yesterday.
Ambrose was dying
two years before his death;
yet before then he overflowed
with life.  In Katlor's last two years
she could not chase grasshoppers
and attack cardboard boxes.  I was frail in
my early twenties, doing petty
things whenever there was worry of loss.

Now that they are gone I feel they are giving me
their energy, which in the old days would be backwards:
I'd hear I lost my brother and my cat
and I'd want to join them.
But neither of them will allow me to do that.
They keep pushing me forward, because it's
a terrible injustice that they
lost their strength (Ambrose too young, it's
injustice).
They both gave me the life they lost,
and now I live for them.  Maybe one day
things will not be so unfair and I can
see them again, and ask questions
and we will be children together again.

Frozen

I don't think my sexuality should be on display, but for the sake of guessing, I am a Pansexual. I don't fall in love until I know the personality. Not their beauty. When I was 23 years old I knew a musician who would come over to my studio near the ocean and scan my CD collection for rare albums. He would sit on the bed and say very little, but he was so attuned to every note, telling me what is clever. He would point out that Neil Young's voice is so fragile, like him. He had a depth that can't be measured, or guessed. I remember one day at SF State we studied speaking poetry. That night, he said something similar to a phrase we learned about describing the body as a walking poem. One night we stayed up all night. The light streamed through my dark purple curtains. He stood on his knees on the bed, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was part Spanish and part Irish. He had curly black hair. Big blue eyes. Just visually alone, I have never been so close to beauty. Not in some trashy sexual way. He looked like a Spanish gambler, staring out into my garden, listening to the ocean, and I could never guess what thoughts formed in his mind. Very smart. But also very compassionate. One day he came over, said nothing, grabbed some computer paper, and drew me a pencil sketch of Jesus Christ. His band was named after Pilate, which was interesting since only I knew that Pilate said, "What is truth?" He gave me the paper, genitals and blood and nails. Then he left after only saying, "For you." I had such a bad panic burst. What did this mean? Years later a friend of mine found a record of his band, name changed to his, in Australia. God bless the music makers. Before he left me he found two small, white ceramic hearts in my garden. For six months I worked in that same garden and never saw them. I love a person who sees things...the details. Now that is sexy (Hey, I'm human.) I placed them on his chest, and took a photo. My point is not the circle around his beauty, but that one image I have of him peering through the sunlight with a cigarette dangling from Mic Jagger full lips, looking so flawless. I've never seen such angelic perfection in anyone. This is one man who left a mark on me through my travels.