Dear ,
I wish you were here. The wild roses are in bloom! Yes, a cascade of white blooms has just arrived, maybe as late as yesterday.
And there’s a dark brown Adirondack chair waiting, by the little herb garden. I bought it, because a chair supposes.
It was the catalogs that taught me this. (I’ve somehow got back on their lists and need to get off, but I’ve been reticent now that I understand how I can look at them to find you.)
When you open a catalog like Grandinroad’s, you will see what I mean. These pages create convivial worlds, with chairs. Couches, too. And the arrangement of four plates, or six. A pair of goblets. A table, set out for twelve.
I have given some serious thought to the couches, the plates, some floral rugs, even a fire pit.
But the only thing I have bought was the brown Adirondack chair, and not at Grandinroad, but rather at the local hardware store, where I also asked for a scythe and promised it was not for role playing the grim reaper. (I just like to be quiet when I deal with my landscape. It feels more like a conversation. Though, admittedly, the rather golf-club-like tool I bought in lieu of an absent scythe, is a bit… vigorous! I feel very sporty wielding it to shape the river of violets that have taken over beneath the pear trees, where, with my swing, I am turning them into something more like a lake of violets with edges and inlets. Plus, it makes the fact that I took golf quite long ago, in my college days, feel like it was worth it after all, so many years hence. The teacher of that class, by the way, once owned this house. I wrote a tender poem about him and it inhabits the Winter section in my first poetry book; it pictured him on the blue couch that used to be in this living room, before the room was mine to care for. It was a sad poem, but he was happy I’d come to see him, and I still have the poem, though the couch is long gone.
The reason I settled on the chair (and only the chair), at least for now, is that I know I am a person who would like to simply have good conversation about things that matter, while you drink a cup of jasmine tea I make for you. The little herb garden has flowers this year, which make a very welcoming backdrop for talk and laughter. I thought to put dark pink begonias and white-pink geraniums between the rosemary, sage, and Greek oregano. To the side, beyond the boundaries, I planted lavender and lemon balm. Such a fragrant, lightly-colorful setting.
Here is something I didn’t expect. Sometimes this new chair makes me feel alone. But sometimes, maybe more often than the former effect, it cheers me beyond all reason. After all, a chair supposes. Especially an Adirondack chair. It leans back and says, “Come, have tea with me,” and this makes me think I need to extend an actual invitation. At the thought of this, I picture you there, in the chair. We are happy. We are having meaningful conversation. The currants and the blueberries are looking on, very full. Indeed, the new green pearls of translucent currants are bringing the bushes all the way down to touch the grass, they are so plentiful this spring.
So I’m thinking now that maybe there is something you might want to set out—something that supposes. Two goblets. One chair. A table for eight. I wish that for you today—an Imagination born of simple things you arrange, and then I hope these simple things will encourage you to invite someone (or something) meaningful into your life. Here’s to a cascade of fragrance and fullness—like wild roses, and blueberries clustered above the ferns.
As Always,
L.L.