August 28, 2009
We are on our third day of rain here at Ragdale – I feel I am a vegetable being washed quite thoroughly in a rather delightful colander. In a deep old 19th century farmhouse sink. The water is crisp and clear and cold, and just keeps coming. I fall asleep in the colander, and when I wake up it’s much of the same. I roll over, to make sure all the dirt gets gotten.
Frequently people see my cat Spydre and ask how old she is, and I can tell they’re half-expecting me to say four thousand six hundred and seventy seven years old, because that would explain whatever it is that looks out of her yellow eyes. Generally, I say fifteen years old, and then we go into a bleary-eyed tailspin of inter-species chonometry analytics that begin, hm, what is that in cat years.
In vegetable years, I wonder how long it has been raining, or – if I am in fact a vegetable dreaming that I’m a human imagining that I’m a vegetable in a sink – in vegetable years, how long have I been in the marvelous, marvelous colander?
I imagine that in my alternate life as a Ragdale garden vegetable, being plucked abruptly from the earth at the exact point of ripeness and then prepared by Linda and put into steel pots and ceramic dishes and then – god help them…so many adventures, and then the human digestive tract. The vegetable must feel like the process lasts quite a long time. Perhaps about three days. Or four thousand, six hundred and seventy seven. I’m quite enjoying my vegetable years here at Ragdale.
There is no doubt that I feel plucked from my customary patch of earth – presuming that actual earth does exist beneath the beleaguered concrete strata of Los Angeles. I suspect that it doesn’t. I suspect that Los Angeles is simply a tangle of I-beams and La Brea tar pit-harvested asphalt, stuffed with taco wrappers and screenplays into some sort of trash-and-lath catastrophe haphazardly spanning the mouth of hell.
My garden is concrete and grit, sand and soot, and my roots are boots on pavement. Eye stalks. Finger sprouts.
My current operating theory for my experience here is that somewhere in a time-space vortex (perhaps around Pico Boulevard at Robertson) a disoriented prairie flower suddenly materialized onto the sidewalk, and in its place here I am.
Perhaps it’s more like a cultural exchange program that I’m undertaking.
I have come from a place of people and no plants.
I have gone to a place full of plants and no people.
This makes Ragdale and the Prairie the Los Angeles of plant life.
The milkweed pod is perturbed that the purple aster daisies have gone to seed a bit earlier than expected, and the ladybugs are really wishing that the deer would make their beds a little further to the left, and the centipede tends to be so eager to get to the pastry counter at Elat Market that it runs right over the petals of the evening thistle…
Perhaps in the prairie, there was an Aster thinking:
My goodness. I really feel like I can’t think here. So much pollen, so many seeds and those dragonflies always overhead making so much noise, and the ferns have been a bit intrusive now that summer’s nearly over. I would like to go somewhere where I can be really alone. Not be bothered by these responsibilities of tap roots, and the folding up at night, and unfolding in the morning, always collecting dew – and there’s always more dew the next day – and the bees. I love them, yet sometimes they are simply exhausting. All those little feet. All those little feet. My god, their little fucking feet.
In a summer wind storm, the Purple Aster is blown sideways and ends up spending a few hours with an insightful blackberry.
Well, says the Blackberry to Aster, have you considered just, you know, taking a little time just to stop creating?
Aster’s petals become a bit rigid with surprise. A little extra purple.
Oh, Aster says.
Blackberry keeps an eye out for prairie bears as Aster mulls it all over for a while. Three yellow jackets can be heard, and Aster instinctively shudders with distaste.
Blackberry, clever as a snapdragon, doesn’t miss a trick.
You see? says Blackberry, Just put it out there. See what happens. Spend some time visualizing yourself not creating, not being part of a community, just being isolated and on your own. None of that oxygen that we have so much of here.
Encouraged by the support and understanding, Aster perks up a bit – I hear that instead of dragonflies, they have helicopters. And instead of generating their own chlorophyll, they use gasoline. You know, bits of ancient dead things that have rotted into something highly toxic.
Suddenly, a family of raccoons pass by, followed by a contingent of fleas. The raccoons pause a moment to use the loo, which in this instance happens to be some of Aster’s bottom leaves.
Blackberry shrugs a few thorns in commiseration, as though to say, coincidence? I think not.
There is none of this ridiculous organic matter and biocomposting in Los Angeles, the Aster pronounces. In fact, there is no “outdoors” at all. They have walls and windows and doors and floors and roofs, all the way ’round, and most of the time they don’t even open! Ever! And it is impossible to have any of this cycle of life nonsense happening, because they do not allow soil! There is nothing to decay! Nothing to grow! Nothing! Just acres upon acres of plastic and glass and steel!
It was at this precise moment that I was trapped in an elevator at the Grove, grumbling about why mothers and daughters needed to dress alike and have matching mini-me dolls designed by trafficked sweatshop workers on Crenshaw and sold for $400 and why the Farmer’s Market built an Italian restaurant on the grave of an Indian baby and who exactly is responsible for stacking all the perfect little postage stamp panties at the plastic panty shop at the Mall (could it be Cal Arts students?) and you know, it would be really fantastic to sleep under the stars in the pure air and clear water and walk for miles without encountering another human and have no responsibilities at all but to create constantly.
WHOOSH! The clever syllogisms of the timespace continuum strike again.
I hope the purple Aster is doing well on Pico Boulevard at Robertson.
There’s a lot happening in the neighborhood – I recommend the chef’s special at Minori Sushi, a visit to Robert Warner’s leather store for some groovy fringed leather pants, and a little rejuvenation at Juliana’s kundalini yoga classes. Astrid and Kern have really great cheese and crackers, and you might get to play with the stuffed octopus if its legs aren’t ripped off. Jessica is studying for her Board exams nearby and usually has some good MJ videos on. Dorothea might be around and up for a walk. The gurdwana is a good place early in the morning – watch out for all the swords, and bring a dollar for the jar. Roshi and Amir have a powerful little mojo baby, who probably likes flowers already. I know Eric has a lot of vases tucked away, and is a good listening ear. Ru looks scary, but is just a pile of fluff. He likes to stick his claws up your nose while you sleep.
Watch out for Spydre, though – she is about four thousand, six hundred and seventy seven years old, and has an appetite for daisies. Wherever she is, there’s a wrinkle in time, so go visit her when you’re ready to come home to the prairie. Probably in another couple of weeks.
The only tricky thing about working with inter-species travel is – how long is a couple of daisy weeks?
“My current operating theory for my experience here is that somewhere in a time-space vortex (perhaps around Pico Boulevard at Robertson) a disoriented prairie flower suddenly materialized onto the sidewalk, and in its place here I am.”
= Marvelous!
Can’t wait to join the prairie flower in your hood. I can pick it from between the cracks, and carry it in my front pocket, its head bobbing as we walk (walk! in L.A.!) to visit your haunts.