The Killing Season

It's that time of year again. The birds are singing, flowers are on the trees, tulips and daffodils are waving in the breeze and the lawn is turning green.

For some people, it's the season of renewal and hope. For others, it's the killing season, not of animals, not of people-- of plants.

It's also that time of year when every legitimate plant in my yard is quaking in their boots. They would run for their lives but they are frozen in fear, unable to move, caught in rigid terror. There are huge creatures bumbling around amongst them and not one of them is safe.

Unless of course, they are a weed. Weeds have nothing to fear from us.

Gardening used to be a hobby of mine. I had originally hired someone to make a design for my yard, but when gas lines and electric lines ended up being in incompatible places to the design, I chucked it; started from scratch, and designed my own.

I planted trees and shrubs, vines and perennials and patiently waited for it all to grow, mature and look stunning. And it did look beautiful. Until I found out I had lupus, and couldn't go outside any more.

Then it was up to the other members of the household to take care of the yard.

Then came death. Lots of it.

There are people in this house (who will remain nameless in order to protect the guilty) who do not like to weed, do not like yard work of any kind and wish we lived in the middle of a cement ocean.
Not only that, but the care and maintenance of plants seems to be some kind of mystic, incomprehensible science that only the select few have the ability to decipher. The survival of plants comes only from pure chance, a capricious whim of the earth gods.

The answer to this problem is to panic and pour something on everything. Preferably something that isn't compatible with any kind of life.

Are there weeds around the trees? Yes. Pour stuff on it. Look. More weeds around the trees. Pour more stuff on them. And more weeds and more stuff.

And when the trees aren't looking so good, pour stuff on them too.

'Why is the tree dead? We did everything we were supposed to do to this tree! We poured stuff on it's roots. We sprayed it with stuff. It should be thriving! What do you mean it absorbed the weed killer we poured on the weeds around it? We poured it on the weeds, not the tree! Only dumb trees would drink weed killer! We can't help it if our trees are completely unintelligent!'

And so another tree dies. Everything lovely dies.

In the meantime the weeds are still there, standing green, tall and proud, laughing at us. They chug up weed killer; lick their chops, and ask for more like a certain ethnicity drinking certain ethnic alcoholic beverages.

(Okay, so I've been told I have to be politically correct here. This is a family friendly site, remember? I say one little borderline thing about a specific group and I get nasty messages. I'll probably hear from the weeds -- Who are you to call plants 'weeds'? How do you know what determines a 'weed' and a 'plant'? Are you vegetable matter? No! All plants deserve life! You're nothing but a judgemental, *%#@&%*#, weedaphobe! Weedist!)

Only the hardy lives at this address. If you want to see what absolutely cannot be killed in our climate, take a tour of our yard. Take some clippings, you'll have plants that no amount of abuse, neglect and misguided TLC can kill!

And if they keep pouring chemicals on the ground everywhere, we may end up with mutant species yet unknown to science or man. Think of the bragging rights you'd have crowning your garden with some of that!

My design is gone. The subtlety is gone. Most of the plants are gone too. Forget colors, textures and size, I'm happy with anything that can survive the onslaught.

My yard still looks stunning. Not in the same way though, more in a can't-tear-my-eyes-away-horrified-fascination kind of way, wherein the viewer is stunned. Yes. Speechless.

The Epsitolarian

People are wondering if I like this website.

I'm not sure yet. This seems strange and new. Not at all comfy like my old site. It was all broken in and familiar. I knew all the ins and outs of that one.

Okay, okay, so I didn't. But I knew more ins and outs than I do on this one. The old site was simple enough for an idiot to use. I could just bumble around frantically tapping keys and eventually something acceptable would happen. That's why I stuck with it for so long.

For those of us who are so technologically challenged we need a guide book to figure out how to unlock our front door, blogging is a mind boggling labyrinth of epic proportions. I don't know what I'll do if smart homes become the norm. Sleep on my door step a lot, I guess, or become a hobo.

So why do I do it, you wonder.

Because people don't write letters anymore.

I was a letter writer back in the day. (Waaaaayyyy back.) I loved the feeling of using pen and paper and recording thoughts with them and seeing those thoughts with my eyes. I had lots of stationary. (I still wander through stationery sections of books stores, longingly fingering the paper and deciding what I would have bought if  there had been someone to whom I could write a letter.) And buying stamps was fun.

I'm sorry to say, I didn't have very good correspondents, besides my grandma. (That's what real love does for you.) My mom sent me form letters, which I was thrilled to get, at least they came every couple of months. (What can I say? She had a lot of kids. She adores email now.) I'd write friends and family and acquaintances regularly and enthusiastically and they would eventually send off a few hastily scribbled lines in response -- more often than not, pointing out words I'd misspelled. (I get about as much written feedback on my blog as I did for my letters. And in case you haven't noticed, my blog readers aren't keen on commenting.)

And yes, I was an avid note passer in middle school and high school. And yes, I was in detention a lot.

In my naivete, I thought when email became a thing that my correspondents would be more excited about-- well--corresponding. No such luck. Then the other social media came along and I hoped that would open up new vistas. But no. I simply don't have writing-inclined friends, family and acquaintances (or even strangers for that matter).

It comes down to a love of writing. I love it - others don't. It's that simple.

But it makes me wonder how many bloggers would have been letter writers 30 or more years ago? Perhaps blogs are where all the reliable correspondents went?

And I love reading. I'll read anything. Books of all kinds, ingredient lists on food, instruction manuals, prescription labels, magazines, newspapers, letters, you name it. I love to read. I love to write. I'm the perfect pen pal.

This is the tragedy of my life.

But just as I was in my epistolary years, I'm undaunted by the lack of written enthusiasm and I keep on going anyway. I've been well trained to write in a vacuum. While technology killed pen pals, at least it opened up alternate venues for incurable writers like me. Welcome to my blog.

Doing What I Like to Do.

I think my brains are addled.

Seriously, this thing's getting so convoluted I can't think straight.

Okay, so here's the problem with writing mysteries. They're hard. Writing romances is a walk in the park compared to this. How long have I been working on this novel? Will it never end? And of course, of course, as usual this mystery just cannot take itself seriously. Nothing I write can take itself seriously.

Whine, whine, complain, complain.

Of course, the beautiful thing about having writing as a hobby and not as a profession is that I can write whatever I want, whenever I want. I can change genres as many times as I feel like it. There are no rules I have to follow. And if it takes me six years to write one book there's no one to complain about it but me.

It's kind of gotten me thinking about the future of publishing. Will there be more and more people like me, who prefer not to deal with publishing companies and literary agents, deadlines and pressure? Perhaps that's why the e-book trade is flourishing?

I suppose if someone were very serious about selling gobs of books they may want to go that route. But think of the marketing! Is there anything more horrifying than having to do book signings or radio spots or television time?

No. Much better to hide out at home and type away huddled in a comfy chair and a quilt and delve into thoughts of my own invention all by myself. I do like that I can make what I write available to friends and family and the occasional other person I don't know, all strictly online. Do a little formatting and wallah! A book! No fuss, so easy, now everyone can read it (or not). No pressure on me, no pressure on them. Then I can focus on what I like to do - writing.