A wonderful thing about having a book come out in June is that, though one can feel quite anxious about various aspects of publication, it is hard—at least for me—to feel cataclysmically gloomy when the world is so exuberantly waking up from its long winter nap.
Up here in Maine, it seems to happen overnight—one May morning we’re all still plodding around in our calf-length puffers, the next it’s T-shirts and sandals. (Or bare feet on pavement, as I saw sported by one of my neighbors as he led a brand new Pug puppy around the block.) The harbor’s full of boats, the line at the local ice cream shop will stretch down the block this evening. And everything is so very green. At the first blush of spring I, eager to usher in new growth, brought home a succulent from Portland’s Plant Office to fill the beautiful ceramic planter I’d recently picked up from fellow VF staffer Arimeta, who’s as talented at turning clay on a wheel as phrases on the page. (If you’re quick, you might catch the sale they’re holding to clear space for new work.) The peony I transplanted last year has five big buds ready to pop. We’ve been having our first garden lettuce salads of the season and can’t get over how plump the leaves are. A great antidote to futzing in word docs and social media scrolling and comparing oneself to others, it turns out: weeding!
I am very new to gardening. It’s just our second full summer in the house, and everything involving the plants remains fairly mysterious and random to me, regardless of how much I read. Though for the big confusions (how dry can a still-viable dahlia tuber be? how does one “nick” a seed?) I also do have a small army of friends in the business of growing to whom I can turn. Our fruit trees are from Dan’s childhood friend, Richard, who runs a nonprofit called ReTreeUS, which puts orchards in schools throughout (so far) Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont; his partner, Megan, is a flower farmer with a gorgeously stocked stand in North Sandwich, NH, who sent us home from a visit last spring with sweet annuals and perennials to pop into our garden beds, some of which are back in full force this year. More flowery friends will follow. When I’m not bugging them with questions, I’m staring lovingly at their Instagram feeds—maybe the only kind of social media scrolling that doesn’t make me feel depressed afterward.
This past weekend was a full immersion in absolutely divine blooms. Dan and I drove down to the Hudson Valley to stay with my dear old friends, Jesse and Jake, who own and operate Petal Creek Farm—a place so beautiful Dan eventually had to ask me to stop repeating the fact. While we were there, Jesse was on poppy watch; evidently, to make a poppy last, it’s best to cut it just as the first sliver of color appears on the bud. All of my dahlias are from Petal Creek—some from tubers I bought and grew last spring and divided and stored over the winter, plus a few new additions this year—and I’m already looking forward to July and August, when their little patch will be aglow again.
We were in the area for Mimi and Dante’s wedding, which was really too perfect and emotional to describe properly here. But we can talk plants. The cottonwoods released a soft flurry of snowy seeds during the ceremony, the air was grass-sweet. Mimi’s a brilliant landscape designer with a business called Seedhead Gardens, so she had some thoughts on the florals. (A decade ago her undergrad thesis was on the role of the garden in Turgenev’s work, such a lovely congruency.) A few of us spent the afternoon before the wedding day putting together centerpiece arrangements and bud vases comprised of blooms she’d collected from farms and florists in the area. There was something so timeless and moving about gathering together with women she’s befriended though so many phases of her life—a pair of her close friends from high school filled the venue’s window boxes with sweet, unruly herbs; a woman she met while working at an arts space in Brooklyn, now a florist herself, threaded tulips between lacy greenery. A bundle of Jesse’s lily of the valley served as her bridal bouquet.
When I lived in New York I used to whine about not being able to grow things, basement apartments and dark air shaft fire escapes not being particularly conducive to tomatoes, upon which, for whatever reason, I fixated during those years. My friend Lucy, a writer and editor, has proven the smallness of my thinking with her weekly volunteer sessions at East New York Farms. I asked her for her thoughts on the interconnection between the gardening she does there and her work with words, and what she texted me back rings so true:
I’ve been grateful to watch and move with the seasonal rhythms at ENY Farm, to remember that transition and change, growth and death, are natural and inevitable parts of life. Initially I’d thought spending time at the garden was thrilling because it’s so different from what I do day-to-day for work, hunched over a laptop. And that’s true. But I also think growing things is not dissimilar to the writing/editing process—in terms of the balance between organic creative timing and the need to show up regularly, respect the beauty of transitory life, the capacity to be surprised and follow curiosity, and more.
There’s something so soothing and inspiring, too, about the idea of these seeds and tubers and bulbs working away in the dark, under all that soil, converting water and nutrients and everything packed within their own little selves into a shoot that bursts forth, suddenly, as if by magic, to reach up toward the light.
A FEW EXTRANEOUS THOUGHTS
The Mythmakers is one of 9 books featured in the New York Times’ June preview—and among so many good ones: Elliot Page’s new memoir, Jennie Xie’s new novel, Henry Hoke’s brilliant Open Throat.
I’ve been reading about the ongoing work of Wabanaki people to revive the practice of harvesting sweetgrass in Acadia, and fell down a rabbit hole when the work of Suzanne Greenlaw, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maine and a member of the Houlton Band of Maliseets, led me to her children’s book The First Blade of Sweetgrass, which she co-wrote with her husband, Gabriel Frey, a Passamaquoddy basket maker. His artistry is sort of mind-blowing.
If you are looking for gardening apparel—or are a fan of luxurious online window shopping—might I suggest the Catskill-based Gardenheir? I’ve been eyeing a pair of backless clogs for months…
I’ve recently spoken to three brilliant authors about their books: Brandon Taylor, about The Late Americans; Susanna Kaysen, about Girl, Interrupted; and Geena Rocero, about Horse Barbie.
That’s all for now. You know the drill—if you enjoyed, hit the heart button or share with a friend, if you have thoughts, shoot me a message or drop them in the comments.
Read lots, be well, ‘til next time!
love peeking into your world...and seeing your book in the NYT!!! woot woot!
Flowers in June are the best kind of luxury. We get lots of Lily of the Valley here and also peonies, two of my very favorites. They always make me think of Mrs. Dalloway and that well-known snippet from it: "...life; London; this moment of June." But I mangle it to: "life, love, this moment in June." Maybe because I haven't read the novel in years. And I don't want to be in London in June. (March or April, yes!)
Here's to the best month of the year, flowers and brilliant book debuts! Loved seeing THE MYTHMAKERS yesterday in the NYT.