There’s Something About Mary

There’s something about Mary. What is it? 

You found this web site. You demand to know who this woman is. She dares to call herself an author. Insists she knows about plants. And what on earth is a “life-long beginner?” 

I want you to keep reading. So I’ll explain.

I grew up in suburban Minneapolis. Moved to the city itself. Then to its twin, St. Paul. Got married. Acquired two college degrees and two children. Same house for thirty-four years. Same husband for forty-one. Children became adults, each with two college degrees. One daughter-in-law. One granddog. Did not expect: a) the coronavirus pandemic; b) the presidency of Donald Trump, or c) the Spanish Inquisition. Or: d) to live this long.

The Who declared Hope I die before I get old. I could barely imagine turning eighteen. A slogan came and went: Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty. I didn’t; why should I? Thirty was a walled-off compound of mortgages and Weber grills. When the Beatles sang Will you still need me, Will you still feed me, When I’m sixty-four? I smirked. Sixty-four meant dentures and polyester pantsuits. Lawrence Welk. Geritol.  

And yet, here I am. Old. But as the plague victim in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” repeatedly insisted, I’m not dead!

Nothing in my closet resembles the pastel horrors with elastic waistbands our mothers wore. My jeans are straight-legged and skinny, but my bell-bottoms from 1970 would still fit. Dental hygienists praise my oral health. My husband serves steak and salmon, not applesauce and gruel. My hair’s still blond. COVID has allowed me to grow it past my shoulders, more lustrous than in the days of Herbal Essence. No Vera, Chuck, or Dave bounces on my knee.  

Every morning, I wake to NPR. (I am not just a member, I am a sustaining member). On my iPhone, I scroll through the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker. Obsessed with the latest surreal press conference, the newest tweet, the most recent dismissal of a career public servant, I sip fair-trade coffee. In the evening, after a cocktail – who isn’t drinking a little more these days? – I reach for the remote. Instead of three networks and a grainy local station, I’m presented with dozens of choices. Our cable bill is approaching critical mass. I mix another cocktail. Before falling asleep, I read. Print and digital; classic and new; fiction and non-. If a book doesn’t move me, I don’t finish it. No longer do I slog painfully to the end, as I used to. Life’s too short.

So now you know something about me. Living in the stolid Midwest, flyover land, I pay attention to the rest of the world. With limited technical skills, I manage. I rage, mildly, against the dying of the light. 

But wait, as the TV hucksters say. There’s more. 

Somehow, you found this web site. Author? I’ve published a few poems, short stories, a personal essay. After putting myself through the University of Minnesota, I got my M.F.A. in writing. Instead of publishing slim volumes of prize-winning poetry while teaching at a prestigious college, my life took a different trajectory.

Loss. Sorrow. Shame. Despair. These are not abstract concepts. They are the dark stars by which I’ve piloted my life over the past twenty years. Celestial navigation once seemed a romantic phrase. I believed I was following the constellations that would welcome me into their midst as a star. Instead, kept barely afloat by God knows what, I was adrift. Incapable of being the mother my children needed or the partner my husband deserved, I was lost at sea. Having jettisoned friendships and career, poisoned waters, burned bridges, I was alone. I had no reason to keep going.

But I did. I survived. A job provided scaffolding and structure to my life. It brought a paycheck. Even as it ate away at self-esteem and halted intellectual growth, I stayed. Even as stress winnowed away fifty-five pounds, I stayed. For seventeen years, and counting.

Through these letters to the world, I am finding my way back. 

Even during that lost time, I kept scribbling. I took classes and joined a writer’s group. A tiny ember flared up, taking the shape of a novel. My book is titled “The Empty Places.” The message it contains is simple: There is a way out.

At the writers’ conference I felt bold enough to attend last year, I learned that I needed a web site. A brand. Multiple platforms. Hashtags, the keys to the kingdom of Social Media. Hesitantly, I came up with Author, Gardener, and Lifelong Beginner. 

Are you sure? You can change them later. My daughter, a web designer, created this site. In two hours, she did what I could not have accomplished, ever. I post stuff, and she fixes it, bringing my monotone suggestions into peacock tones. Living color! I need her. Do you still need me? is my silent plea. 

But to quote, once more, The Who: The kids are alright. They are more than alright. They are my constant blessing. My pride and joy. And if they are my pride, I must be a lioness.

For so long, I’d given up on the patch of dirt I call my soul. What kind of gardener does that?

Over the years, as it turns out, I’ve planted things. Somehow, some have lived. Blossomed, even. I photograph them endlessly. The pictures I post here are emblematic of struggle, and the beauty that miraculously makes its way into the world. Some require shade; others, bright sunlight. Some need to go dormant under snowbanks, when the temperature dips to minus 30, to survive. I know the long Minnesota winter is over when my star magnolia blooms white and magnificent next to my open front porch.

Like me, it is a lifelong beginner.