Jan 19, 2021
Still Not There Yet pg185
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
1994
Nine months into sobriety I was on the step about saying I’m sorry to actual people instead of just stewing about it. An apology is only effective when each ugly, behavioral lump of gunk is dragged out into the sun and tossed on a fire with a witness while praying, so there were some profound life changes going on. — From Chapter 10
My mother was taught how to grow food by her Norwegian father, how to can it by her Scottish mother, and passed on the basics to me. Tending to the needs of people isn’t one of my more notable life skills, but caring for plants and dogs is. Even during the darker seasons I was pruning roses and turning compost, but I’m no master. My better gardening tips are geared for my fellow attention deficit peeps. For instance: when planning for irrigation, set up the sprinkler first and run it for a while. Then plant only in the wet spot so you don’t have to move it again. I was willing to haul hoses around for roses. There were nineteen bushes of fragrant hybrid teas in my Benicia yard — most of them ordered from Jackson Perkins.
Plants have their own sentience, and over time I discovered they could be bribed. I would announce to the garden that the most fruitful and beautiful would get their portraits painted. They might have been vain or it might have been luck, but tomatoes and roses competed to be gloriously over-sized and abundant. I painted them over and over for decades in between more serious subjects. It made us all happy. I must apologize to the zucchinis. Although they were over-achievers for my attention, the poor, under-appreciated zukes never got their own art series or gallery show.
A signed copy of Mernie’s memoir is available at www.etsy.com/listing/839838936
Unsigned copies can be ordered wherever books are sold.
