...flowers out of the dead land...

“April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.”

~T.S. Eliot

This weekend has been THE best weekend for this girl since October 2016 when I fell off the train (literally)! The winter has been cruel; hell, 2016 sucked and 2017 hasn’t looked much better.

But, then came the weekend. Yesterday, on my long to-do list, I timed it so that if I finished grading before 10am I could go clean-up the garden, which hasn’t been touched since October. I didn’t even do my Fall organizing since I was limping around back then. Everything was left in place to winter the seasons. Fortunately, it seemed like it all fared okay… for the most part, but I’ll get to that.

I finished grading at 10:20am, which was good enough for me! I headed out to the garden to rake leaves from the fall; pick up broken yard-art (including a broken plate from a yard-art flower that ended up biting me… but hey, no stitches!); clean out the bird house and the watering can that a bird made her nest in (which we knew was a bad idea so as I was cleaning it out, I found the dead bird… I burst in tears, my fella was upset)… crying in the garden is a safe place to do such things so I cleaned and I cried. Then after a frog landed on my face and I was able to guide him to a safe area, I weed-wacked (I won’t let the lawn crew come in my yard since they destroy everything).

I found new growth; I freshened up the whirligigs that will probably need to be replaced by the end of the summer; I debated if my falling-apart lawn furniture will survive one more season (I think so but I’ll let you know if anyone crashes through a chair). And, now I’m itching to plant flowers and herbs even though as I write this my toes are cold. I tell myself soon. Soon I will be out there.

Today was spent in a cemetery with the River City Cemetarians. It was a beautiful, sunny day to learn a bit of history. Our group had a tour of a historic Jewish cemetery. While there have been so many sad news reports about vandals in Jewish cemeteries, it was nice that the group could make a sizable donation to their museum and archives group.

It was also a perfect day to start thinking about a blog post for Plan Your Epitaph Day, which is this Thursday. Many of us know this thanks to Insomniac's Attic 2017 calendar! This was the most interesting epitaph I saw today because of the wording. 

I have never seen such phrasing. It reads, “Carlena, relic of the late Benjamin Rose.”