It all began when I was just a baby, crawling about on the ground. For some reason I wouldn’t venture into the grass. My mom could put me down on a blanket in the yard and I wouldn’t wander off it. Maybe it was the texture of grass—all pokey & tickly on my tender hands & knees. Or could it have been the color or smell?
As I grew I learned to love plants from my Grandma Johnson. She kept plants at her house, inside & out. The dormer window in her living room afforded them year round light. There was a fern that grew like a green fountain on top of the white, metal water heater in the kitchen. Its wispy, lanky leaves trickled down towards me, inviting me to play with them. I remember secretly, gently petting the velvet leaves of African violets. Grandma taught me as a young one not to touch the house plants, to look without disturbing them. This instilled a sense of awe.
When I was old enough to carry a child-sized watering can, I helped water the summer blossoms. Next to her back steps was a large rose bush with fragrant pink blossoms. There behind the bush, under the water spigot was a gray metal washtub. We filled it each evening with cold tap water so that the water could warm to air temperature before the next evening when we would sprinkle it lovingly on the plants.
We each would dip & fill our watering cans and I’d follow behind my big Bertha Grandma in her familiar house dress to each flower bed in turn – the purple pansies, the two large purple clematis vines growing on each side of the front porch entrance surrounded at their feet with red & white petunias, the lilies of the valley hidden in a shadier spot, and the pink snap dragons, bluebells, & cosmos flowers between the white picket fence and the driveway.
Afterwards we would sit outside a while in the white lawn chairs Grandpa had made in his wood shop & enjoy the summer evening air. (Of course I had a small chair made just my side.)
This nurturing of plants nurtured something in me that has grown through out my life, wherever I may be.
