Plant the Peony

When I am digging in my yard, I have lots of conversations with myself. I like talking to myself, because she is the only person who can follow a conversation with me anyway. So, today, I am cleaning all of the winter’s mess out of my flower beds. There is something truly surreal about venturing out on that first spring day… the familiar feel of my old worn garden gloves and squeaky rubber boots.. the shiny, sharp scissors cutting through the dried stalks of last year’s flowers, to make room for new ones…. The smells and sounds and feels that are both new, and older than time itself. The task is a bit harder this year, because late last summer, a terrible Derecho storm made a big ol’ massive mess in my yard, and pretty much everywhere else in Iowa. I decided when it happened, that since it was almost autumn anyway, to just let the limbs and leaves lay as mulch over the beds til spring because, well, it just made sense. So anyway, I am out there uncovering giant flappy tulip leaves, and pointy, bossy, little iris poking up everywhere, and lily buds that are both holy and vaginal, a sight to make Georgia O’Keefe moist. You see, I have planted hundreds, probably thousands, of perennials into a big cottage garden all around the front of my house, a riotous symphony of plants that open and close, bloom and wither all season long. And as I am working at uncovering it all today, I found one of my most prized plants has finally decided to peek through the soil... my peonies.

As I mentioned, when I kneel in the mud working and weeding, I am always talking to myself. Today I say to myself, “self, what would you say to a younger self of yourself right this minute, squatted down in the cold Iowa wind and warm Iowa sunshine, diggin’ in the dirt, with funny clothes and dirty feets?’

I am an impatient, alpha sort of woman. I want things to be the way I want them, right now, preferably me doing it by myself. As such an instant gratifcation personality, I have always chosen to plant annuals and veggies, and shied away from perennials and biennials... those flowers that take 2-3 years to bloom. My younger self felt like, why plant something that doesn’t bloom within a couple of weeks? But then, my younger self, wasn’t a crippled old lady with Lupus.

My health has forced me to learn a lot of things over the years. Things like patience and humility, and appreciation for the priceless treasure of Mother Nature’s gnarled hands of time. It is an accumulation of life lessons that have forced me to slow down and appreciate the perfumed gifts the earth offers.. stop and smell the roses, so to speak. Treasures earned as I wait through long winters and scorching suns and endless lonely nights to see what bountiful beauty they will bring. As I slowly work my way through my yard unveiling spring’s treasures, I know now that there is nothing more satisfying than seeing flowers you planted years ago break through the earth like an old friend, a true cog in the circle of the vast, strange ecosystem of my wild and harsh and wonderful yard. These old girls are truly the queens in the court of fast living petunias and marigolds that leave every fall, never to return... the plants that I have to nurture for a couple years, mean so much more to me, than the ones that flower so freely.

So, today, right now, I reckon what I would say to my younger self is... ‘Self, go on and plant the peony.’