Remembering the Violence

I saw today that Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, has written a new book. And down the Rabbit Hole I went.

But this one turned out to be about remembrance.

My grandchildren will not remember Nicole Brown Simpson. They will not remember the handsome, smiling O.J. Simpson who was once an athletic hero, a television personality and one of the most recognizable men in America.

I remember both.

I believe O.J. killed Nicole. I’m no scholar of the case, and I didn’t follow every minute of the trial, but the horror of a woman being murdered by her husband and their two children being left without their mother still astounds me.

Maybe that is what sent my mind where it went next, because today is September 11.

I remember that day, too.

I remember watching the Twin Towers fall. Not topple. Not tip over. They seemed to sink straight down into the earth.

I can still imagine the dust and debris filling the air. I can still see the people running. I can still remember the almost impossible feeling of understanding that this was happening here, to us, right now.

My grandchildren will see those same images. They will probably see them for the rest of their lives.

But will they ever feel the shock?

I wonder because I know World War I and World War II only through books, movies, photographs and documentaries. I know what happened. I can be horrified by it. I can grieve for people who lived and died long before I was born.

But I don't remember it.

There is a difference.

I remember the Challenger exploding in the sky.

I remember September 11.

There are events we learn about, and there are events that become part of us because we were there—even if “there” was sitting in front of a television hundreds or thousands of miles away.

One informs us.

The other becomes part of the ties that bind us together as a Nation through shared pain.

And maybe that is why remembering matters.

We are meant to feel.

We are meant to hold on to one another and take care of one another.

I don't believe this country was meant to be simply a place where each of us grabs whatever we can and worries only about our own progress. I don't believe America belongs more to the rich than the poor, or to one race, one religion, one birthplace or one kind of person.

We are people whose families came from every corner of the globe. Black and white. Rich and poor. Short and tall. People whose grandparents arrived on ships and people whose ancestors were already here. People who came willingly and people whose ancestors did not.

At our best, we stand tall and protect the weak. We gather the hurt and oppressed to our bosom. We pick up the pieces when violence invades our homes, our country, or the world we want to live in.

Maybe that is one of the responsibilities of those of us who remember.

Not just to tell younger generations what happened.

But to tell them what it felt like.

Because eventually memory becomes history.

And history alone cannot tell them everything.

The Guillotine - 1977

I just read one of those little historical facts that makes you stop and check the date.

France used the guillotine for the last time in 1977. 

This shocked me so much I had to Google the details. 

I think I had mentally stored the guillotine along with the French Revolution—Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, crowds in the streets, 18th-century France. 

Here is what I learned: 

The last man executed by guillotine in France was Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant who had been convicted of the torture and murder of a young woman named Élisabeth Bousquet. It was a terrible crime, and he is not a sympathetic character. 

It's the date that gets me.

September 10, 1977.

Jimmy Carter was president. Star Wars had been released a few months earlier. People were flying across the Atlantic on 747s. We had color television.

And in Marseille, France, a man was executed by guillotine.

Not a replica. Not a ceremonial holdover. The guillotine.

France had introduced the guillotine as its official method of execution during the French Revolution. The strange thing is that they simply kept using it. Methods of execution changed elsewhere, but the guillotine remained France's legal machinery for carrying out death sentences.

Djandoubi wasn't even some isolated case in which an ancient law was suddenly dusted off. Two other men had been guillotined in France during the fourteen months before him.

Then, after Djandoubi, it stopped.

French courts continued to impose death sentences for a few more years, but there were no more executions. François Mitterrand was elected president in 1981 after publicly opposing capital punishment, and his justice minister, Robert Badinter, led the effort to abolish it.

France abolished the death penalty in October 1981.

Four years later.

Oh, I Know All About That

I was reading a Substack article entitled History’s 5 Greatest Plays.

Why, you ask, of all the interesting subjects in the world did this catch my attention?

I guess because (1) I knew I wouldn’t know them all, and I hate for someone to know more than me, and (2) I knew I would forget them by the time I poured my next cup of coffee.

Do you have that problem?

I can research the hell out of something—say, a plant. What kind of soil. How much sunlight. How to propagate it. I can have a whole Pinterest board full of information.

Then a neighbor asks me the name of the plant.

Deer in the headlights.  

I knew that yesterday.

Be Her

 

I Underestimated the Squirrels

 I moved my airplane plant.

The squirrels had already destroyed half of it, so this time I was smart. I put it on top of a broken birdbath stand—far enough off the ground that they couldn’t jump up, and far enough from the tree that they couldn’t leap from tree to plant.

Or so I thought.

This morning I looked outside.

Apparently, I had underestimated the squirrels.

Again.

I Cracked One Eye Open

 I woke up this morning with a vibration around my head.

Not a noise exactly. A vibration.

It was strange and snuggly at the same time.

I cracked one eye open just a tiny bit.

There was a brown-and-white paw on my pillow.

Ah.

Bonnie Rae.

My little deer-head Chihuahua had wrapped her body, in full vibration, around my head. 

For the first time ever, we were sharing a pillow this morning.

Then I noticed the second odd thing.

Darkness.

In the morning?

I didn't need to check the weather app.

Dark skies. Rain. Thunder.

Of course.

Bonnie Rae wasn't being affectionate.

She was taking shelter.

Apparently, in a thunderstorm, Mom's head will do.  

Closing Address: The Final View From Headquarters.

Now, a matter of real importance... the Lilac Disaster. 

I bought that plant.

When plants people give me die, I am sad. When plants I paid for die, I feel personally betrayed.

I wanted a big lilac bush growing in my big pot.

Skinny Tail, the squirrel —or one of his cousins—had other plans.

The plant has been dug up so many times that it appears to have lost the will to live.

Darn.

I really wanted that lilac.

But one plant's tragedy has become another plant's real-estate opportunity.

My Alocasia—the plant that looks like elephant ears but isn't—has now been moved into the big pot.

Another note of interest: I had one large clump of snake plant(s) (or mother-in-law tongue, if you prefer) and divided it into separate pots. For quite a while they just sat there.

I remembered, if such a thing is possible for me, that snake plants are among those plants that don't particularly like being tiny specimens floating alone in enormous pots.

Apparently mine have adjusted to their housing arrangements because they have finally started kicking out babies. 

We are pleased to announce that reproduction has resumed. 

However, as a safety measure, rocks were installed in all pots as squirrel deterrents. 

That concludes our August State of the Garden Update. Please stay tuned for fun and frollicking in September next month. 

And Now to The Plant Report

There has been considerable movement within this troubled area in August.

Two of my newest plants, a lantana and a sweet potato vine, arrived in what I can only describe as dead soil.

I don't know if soil can actually look dead, but this did.

I took the plants to the sink and soaked them thoroughly. Within a day or two, they were dry again. Maybe that was simply Houston in August, but I decided they deserved better accommodations. 

Unfortunately, the only pots I had available were too large.

Then I remembered my bird's nests.

I don't know what they're really called. They are those round straw cups that fit inside hanging baskets. You can buy them with or without the hanging apparatus. I put sticks in the bottom of the large pots, nestled a bird's nest inside each one, added soil, and divided the sweet potato vine between them.

I was a little worried because the roots were surprisingly small.

But I can see the vines have perked up. The leaves look happy.

For now, management considers the relocation successful.

I have used both bird's nests and will be returning to the store for more. I am delighted to have discovered a way to use one of my too-large pots without filling the entire thing with dirt.

This is also important because some plants don't like being alone in enormous pots.

Which plants?

Ha. I can never remember.

This is one of those gardening facts that enters my brain, gets filed somewhere and cannot be located when needed.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Casualties, Survivors & Reproduction: spirea on life support, ivy shriveling “kind of like my arms,” snake plants producing babies, and Pentas thriving while the butterflies refuse to participate.

August State of the Garden Address

Opening Address: The Squirrel Situation 

I am pleased to report that the state of the garden is strong. 

Well. 

Parts of it are strong. 

Other parts have been dug up by squirrels, baked by the Houston sun, trampled by tree trimmers, planted in the wrong place, moved to a better place, moved again, cut down to two inches in a last desperate attempt at survival, or thrown in the garbage. 

Perhaps I should say: The state of the garden is an ongoing situation. 

This morning I sat looking through my window and saw photograph after photograph I couldn't take. 

The doves were out. The squirrels were out. The wind picked up, and rain was supposed to arrive around four. Then the birds disappeared. The squirrels disappeared. 

That's generally a better weather forecast than my phone.

For a while yesterday, every time I opened my door, squirrels came running toward me. Apparently the squirrels now believe my open door is the path to the Peanut Department. 

The birdseed I put out yesterday contained sunflower seeds for the squirrels and smaller seeds for the Mourning Doves. The squirrels spent the day running the doves off while they ate the sunflower seeds. 

Today the sunflower seeds were gone. 

So were the squirrels.

The doves returned to clean up the rest.

I didn't get the Memo but I believe there is a system there. 

Stay tuned tomorrow for the Plant Report, including significant damage to the Airplane Plant and an ongoing investigation into the death of a Lilac.

I Wanted the Tree Gone. Now I Miss It. Of Course.

I had the teenage offshoot of my tree cut off recently. The same tree I described here: Waiting for the Rain.

I wanted to do it for a long time. And, even though the leaves were beautiful, dancing in the wind, I wanted to see what my garden would be like with more sunlight. 

The tree trimmers came to the apartment this week, so I let them cut it. 

Now I'm sorry I did.

But that's okay.

Sometimes you have to do the thing you've been thinking about before you can know whether it was the right choice. I tried it. Now I know. It wasn't. Besides, I doubt I've heard the last from that tree. It will grow back. Whether it comes back as another shoot, grows taller from what's left, or does both remains to be seen.

I wanted to see the difference it made. Dang. Now there is sunlight everywhere. It's like a giant floodlight has been turned on.

In the past two days, I've been watching the leaves turn in new directions. Plants that spent years growing one way are already making adjustments. The lantana is delighted. It is stretching its branches into the new sunlight as though somebody finally opened the curtains. 

Even the sweet potato vine is perking up. I'd forgotten how much sun it can take.

I've been moving pots around, trying plants in new places and seeing what might be happier where. I raked, which is no small undertaking in my garden. There are pots everywhere, with ivy growing along the ground and assorted plants apparently having established property rights in places I don't remember assigning them.

By the end of the day, I ached like the devil beat me.

The backs of both legs hurt. Even my poor neck had apparently been gardening.

I rolled Aleve all over everything I could reach and went to bed sore but satisfied. If you haven't tried the Aleve roll-on, you're missing something great. I'm still sore today, although considerably less so. The garden needs watering, but the garden is going to have to wait until its gardener can bend over again.

The wildlife is adjusting to the changes, too.

The squirrels have gone mad. Many of the branches reached from tree to tree or tree to roof or second floor. They never stopped jumping across their treetop jungle. 

Now they are chasing one another up and down the sidewalk, through the flower beds and up and down the trees. 

Whatever has happened, squirrel rush hour now appears to last all day.

I didn't feed the birds or squirrels yesterday morning, and every time I went outside they seemed to be everywhere. Today I put some food out as an "I'm sorry for the disturbance" treat. 

Then, later in the day, I was looking at the birdbath and saw two big blue jays in it. 

I've seen one occasionally, but never two together. There they were, both apparently deciding that my birdbath was the place to be.

A few days earlier, while I was playing with my plants, I had another visitor.

A little green tree frog. 

I've always had regular frogs around here, but this was the first little green tree frog I'd seen in my garden. I have no idea what he thinks about all this tree trimming. I hope he found another leafy place he likes.

So the garden is not suddenly perfect.

The tree I wanted gone is gone, and I miss it.

My muscles hurt.

The squirrels have lost their minds.

And I still have to water one more time today.

But something interesting happened when I changed the sunlight.

The garden began rearranging itself.

Leaves turned.

Branches stretched.

Plants I hadn't been thinking much about suddenly perked up.

The squirrels went looking for new highways.

And I started paying attention to all of it.

I began looking at my own garden differently.

Cutting down that tree changed the light.

And changing the light changed everything else.

Maybe that's why I can't quite say I regret doing it after all.

I miss what was there.

But I'm awfully interested in seeing what happens next. 

More later ... 

Waiting for the Rain

 

It’s noon, and there is a heaviness in the air.

The sky is darkening, but not quite dark. The wind is blowing and the leaves are gently dancing. Usually when they dance like this, they make shadows that move across my sidewalk.

Not today.

There aren’t any birds or squirrels out either. They seem to know something I don’t.

I did feed one young squirrel this morning. I call him Skinny Tail because he seems to have less hair on his tail than the others. I also suspect he is the squirrel who likes to roll around in my flower pots.

I’ve started monitoring him and his bad behavior.

The other squirrels mostly leave my pots alone unless they’re trying to bury a peanut. They particularly like freshly planted pots with nice loose soil. Apparently, I have been providing them with both lunch and recreational facilities.

There is a barren spot just outside my hedge. The hedge is probably a million years old. After years of trimming, the bottom is mostly bare sticks while the greenery blooms several feet above them. It’s actually rather sad looking, but I inherited it that way, so it stays.

Meanwhile, I have one enormous airplane plant that continues producing babies faster than I can give them away. During the last trimming, I took about six babies with good roots and planted them in that barren spot.

The squirrels promptly dug them up.

I replanted them.

They dug them up again.

At the moment, two or three seem to be taking root. A few others are struggling along, and I’m hoping the squirrels are finally getting bored with the whole project.

I’ve even considered buying a bag of soil and dumping some in an out-of-the-way spot just for them to dig. Maybe if they had their own nice patch of loose dirt, they would leave mine alone.

Of course, that raises another question: How much of the area outside my apartment am I entitled to turn into Barbara’s Botanical Garden?

I was reluctant to go overboard at first because I didn’t want to annoy either management or my neighbors. One day a member of management walked by, so I asked if my gardening was okay.

He said yes.

His face said something closer to, Yeah, okay, whatever. Please don’t make me deal with this right now.

I took the yes and ran with it.

Fortunately, my neighbors seem to enjoy the results. My upstairs neighbor tells me how much she likes looking down at the garden. The neighbor who shares the patch with me says his visitors comment on it. And my neighbor on the other side says she wishes she could have gotten my apartment.

So I think I’m safe.

And now the sky is a little darker. The wind is a little stronger. The leaves are still dancing, and I think the rain will be here any minute.

I hope so.

Not only does my garden need it, but every drop that falls is one less minute I have to stand outside in the Houston sun holding a watering hose.

Sometimes nature and retirement cooperate beautifully.