Editing

Writing is not easy.

Reading, I suspect, alters our perception.

We pick up a book and relish the prose, yet think not of the craft. We consume, yet think not of the production.

Gifted writers entice and captivate with rivulets and torrents of words which, in their very juxtaposition, generate images, evoke feelings, signify a mood, set a scene. Good writing belies the labor of the craft, for it impresses upon the reader an eloquence, a rhythm, a flow, an economy of words that, in its precision, exemplifies efficiency.

The activity of writing is much, much messier.
 
Nay, writing is brutal: brutal only because good writing entails not simply composition but editing, or a curious, objective, unsentimental, unforgiving approach to one's work. Editing demands disposal of the product, excision of text; reconstruction of prose; revision of ideas. It demands we confront our best work and declare it ineffective, in need of improvement.

Nature proves an apt model. I've complained this summer of my Sclerotium rolfsii which has killed ever so much in my garden. I've complained of drought. And now I complain about all of the empty spaces.


But as I walked around this morning, I was struck by how effective an editor nature really is.

What remains is an essence: a prominence of elegant burgundies and purples, as supplied by the vibrant ethereal hues of Tall Purpletop Verbena against those svelte limbs of Rose Mallow, which deepen in intensity as the days grow shorter,

which contrast so perfectly with the silvery hues of Helene von Stein Lamb's Ear when set against a backdrop of the Happy Single Flame dahlia (which has produced hundreds of buds and few flowers owing to a parasite that eats the buds from the inside out). 

On the lower level in the front garden, Helene von Stein finds company with Eupatorium 'Chocolate' Snakeroot, which itself is paired (deliberately) with Lavatera Red Rum so as to accentuate the latter's burgundy stems.

The effect is, if I may, one of Teutonic efficiency, and militaristic precision.

 

Amputations

After my lamentations this morning, I went outside to retrieve the garbage bin after trash pick-up. On my way back to the rear of the house, at the eastern edge of the front shade garden where it borders the passage through the alley, I saw a large paint chip atop the vestiges of Helene von Stein Lamb's Ear. (While the crew which is working on my windows is neat, invariably paint chips blowing in the wind are deposited here and there.)

I bent down to pick it up, but it was partially frozen to one of the leaves. Apparently I gave it too much of a tug, because it my hand not only did I get the paint chip, but an entire a branch of Ms. von Stein, complete with beautiful, healthy looking yellow-tinted roots, and a few fresh green leaves protected by a few decaying leaves.

I performed an inadvertent amputation! Poor Ms. von Stein! No wonder women steer clear of me. I once squeezed a lady friend's hand and cracked her finger bone. A lean-to for a kiss on the cheek once sent me and my friend nearly tumbling onto the floor because I lost my balance. And no wonder why I am seldom invited to parties in which red wine is featured prominently. My dearest friend Mehrnaz knows all too well the damage that I can inflict upon rare silk Persian carpets.

So I brought her poor little severed arm into the house, and down in the basement "garden center" where I plucked her decaying leaves, inserted her bare roots into soil, brought her upstairs for a thorough watering, and placed her potted self on the sill of a sunny southwesterly facing window. Inadvertent amputations bring inadvertent winter gardening! Violence can be under-rated.

Let's hope that unlike most amputations, her little amputated arm with grow a new body, and her body will grow a new arm.

Color in the Garden: Silver (Foxes)

Many women seem to find men with salt and pepper hair attractive. I believe they are called "Silver Foxes." I have two colleagues, both of whom are exceptionally attractive even without the sprinkling of white and gray, who turn women's heads. I learned that some (now former) students even texted each other when the elder of the two silver foxes would enter the coffee shop. "Silver Fox arrvd." No studying was done on those days. Eye candy supersedes intellectual treats. 

Silver has something of the same effect in the garden. If my gardens passed through their early spring blue phase, they now experience their yellow phase. Sedum ellacombanium and Corydalis lutea display their glory, which only accentuates the yellow pigmentation in the chartreuse Lysimachia (Creeping Jenny), which itself has produced diminutive butter cup-like flowers. The eye needs a rest, and to rest it comes especially at the east/southeast entry to the front garden.

There, I have planted the Helene von Stein varietal of Lamb's Ear--a much more compact and heartier version that the usual type, which sends up scraggly flowers and looks worn by mid-summer. On the other side of the walkway is a Provence Lavender which, though not silver, has enough of the blue-grey in its green to complement the lovely Helene. Each day I see Ms. von Stein I am reminded of another Helene in my life, the inimitable artist from Denver, and her elegant, erudite partner Joanne. I own one original Orr, a water color of a majestic tree painted in glorious autumn golds shrouded by a midnight blue sky. Joanne salvaged it from a pile and offered it to me; Helene balked in the way all artists do at some perceived imperfection, but eventually acquiesced and signed the back "To Matt and Viet: Do with it what you will. Love, Helene." Quintessential Helene, to be sure: Pithy. Affectionate. Utterly inimitable. And for the record: if there is some imperfection in this particular piece, which I have assigned a most prominent wall-space in the house (directly across the front door so that it is the first thing a visitor sees) then it is perfectly imperfect.

As usual, I digress.

In honor of the 27 May Full Flower Moon, a.k.a. the Milk Moon, I purchased a Glacier Blue Euphorbia, and planted it in the spot where my English lavender once stood. Peering through the legginess of Verbena bonariensis (a.k.a. Purpletop or Tall Verbena) and the Provence lavender, one can see a clear axis of silver to Helene von Stein, linking parts of the garden.

From another angle, the silver of Glacier Blue connects to the white of the variegated Siberian iris. Silver soothes, gives the eyes a rest, as the yellow season peaks in 410's front sun garden.

I transplanted the Feverfew yesterday, which underscores the silver patches in the garden and connects the white in the Glacier Blue Euphorbia with the variegated Siberian iris. Together, they form a formidable triumvirate, its center punctuated by the lighter hues of the anvil-like rock.

As in ordinary life, the eye surveys the landscape and invariably comes to rest on the understatedly spectacular. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the silver fox arrests all. If silver is the essence of glamour, if silver is the color of sophistication, then silver may very well also be the lingua franca of attraction.