Things I wish were different

 

A Chinese pistache tree

It was a picture of a painted bunting that started me on this train of thought. The beautiful little bird had landed on someone’s bird feeder, and they, struck by their good luck, got a good picture of it. And suddenly, there I was, thinking about the things in my life that I wished were different.

No, my wishes don’t involve riches or great wealth, homes in Santa Fe and Scotland, servants to cook my meals and clean my house every day, and certainly not the huge house I once, as the mother of four, dreamed about. Today, my wishes are much more modest. But they are also, I realize, things of the past—bits of knowledge and habits that I wish I had cultivated years ago. It is now too late.

I have long wished I was knowledgeable about trees and birds. Oh, I can recognize an oak, even a post oak, or a pecan. But there’s a tree trying to grow out of the fence behind my cottage—and I would have called it a catalpa. But those are the things from back home in Illinois that grew long “cigarettes” that we pretended to smoke as children. Lots of leaves on one stem. A mimosa? When Christian said he wanted a Chinese pistache, I had no idea what he was talking about. I envy those people who can look at a tree, tell me what it is, what’s wrong with it or not.

Similarly, I wish I knew more about plants. My dad spent his weekends on his hands and knees, wearing grubby clothes with huge, ugly rubber pads wrapped around his knees to protect them. We owned the lot next to our house, and it was Dad’s garden—the place where he could unwind, let go, dig in the dirt, and be perfectly happy. He was the president of an osteopathic college, but he didn’t care one whit if a student came by and caught him in gardening clothes.

Me? I can barely tell a hosta from a hydrangea, though Christian has done much to educate me. Oh yeah, I recognize pansies and petunias, roses and geraniums, and I  once was sharp about recognizing poison ivy, but bougainvillea were a whole new experience for me. I’m learning, but not at a fast enough rate. And now that a challenge to my mobility keeps me from gardening, it seems a bit pointless. Oh, who am I fooling? I never much wanted to garden. I dabbled in it, but I am perfectly content these days to pay for a lawn and garden service. What I really want is a classic English garden replacing our front lawn where grass is always a problem—good some years, a disaster other years. Don’t tell me it’s Texas and too dry—I saw a picture today of a Fort Worth acquaintance’s garden--a lovely, wild English garden in front of his house--and I burned with jealousy. But I can’t do the work, I doubt the lawn service would do it, and Christian is wedded to the idea of a conventional lawn. I’m at least hoping to get him, one year soon, to consider clover because it’s cheap, lasts a long time, and is better for the environment—doesn’t require so much water.

And then there are the birds. I sit at my desk in the early morning or twilight, listen to them sing, and wish that I could link the song to a specific bird, but it’s beyond me. I can recognize bluejays (love when they visit) and cardinals—we have a pair that live in our yard, though I haven’t seen them yet this year. But I know the saying that when they do visit it means someone from beyond is thinking of you and I always think it's my parents.

At one point, a friend gave me, at my request, a guide to birds that I kept by my kitchen sink, back when I was in the house and had a greenhouse window over the sink and a bird feeder right outside. But I was never good at spotting birds—eventually the tree that held the feeder had to be cut down, and I moved from the main house to the cottage. We have hung hummingbird feeders out here, but to no avail. If my dad was the gardener, my mom was the bird person. She had a bird feeder right outside the dining room window in their retirement home, and I sat in the window many a time watching the hummingbirds whir and fight and eat.

But when I think about these things, I remind myself to think about the things I am passionate (and knowledgeable) about—books and reading and publishing and cooking, politics with a humanitarian slant, religion though I tend to keep quiet about that. In listing the things I regret, I am by no means complaining. I have too much in life to be grateful for. It’s just that sometimes I notice the things that have slipped by me.

Want to talk about the mystery genre and the various subgenres? I can probably hold my own in that conversation.