Of mulch and moths
A ring of the doorbell. I was on a work call and Seth was on a different work call so we ignored it, assuming it was a package or a salesman or a ding-dong-ditch. But the doorbell rang again. And again. My office door burst open. And there was Seth, saying it was an emergency.
It was a truck full of mulch.
And I mean a whole truck. Waiting to dump its load in our driveway.
I ran outside to move our car. No time to put on shoes, I drove barefoot from the driveway to the street. Have you ever touched a gas pedal without wearing shoes or socks? Have you felt the rubber pad with your bare big toe? It feels like you’re breaking a law, but you’re not. The pedal feels… naked.
I am trying to learn how to garden and, friends, it is a journey. Rabbits and beetles have eaten many of our flower seedlings. Our clover seeding was a failure. But I think the biggest hurdle is when I stand outside looking at our lawn and just feel so entirely overwhelmed. There is so much we could do, should do, that I don’t know where to begin. I have three gardening books that haven’t been opened. I watched exactly two Youtube videos on soil health and didn’t do anything with the information, letting it be forgotten. I need someone to tell me what to do. Me, specifically. About my plants, my soil. So when I learned you could make an appointment at a native plant nursery and talk to an expert I signed up right away.
Sort of. In lieu of signing up for a personal appointment, my mom and I decided to go to their “open hours,” which are only once a month. Yet we showed up and no one was there. It was a greenhouse in the backyard of someone’s private home. So we poked around, assuming someone who worked there would come back from the bathroom or wherever she’d disappeared to. I studied the shade plants and tried to memorize their names. Wild ginger, Jacob’s ladder, three different ferns. No one came. Eventually we went back to the front of the house and rang the doorbell. A barefoot pregnant woman answered, looking deeply confused. We felt equally confused. We told her we were there for open hours.
It was the wrong day.
Thankfully this woman put on her shoes and offered to show us around anyway. She asked if we wanted to see the greenhouse. We nodded, as in, Yes, we certainly have not already been there, please show us the splendors of this unknown place. I browsed the plants as if for the first time, asking her question after question on how to turn a lawn into a prairie paradise. My biggest question was: what to do about all our stupid grass?
She detailed a number of options, the easiest being to cover it with painter’s paper and a thick layer of mulch. “And if you want a lot of mulch, check out Chip Drop. But make sure to watch their videos to learn if it’s right for you.”
I did want a lot of mulch. I did not want to watch the videos. I put in a request. Days later, it was fulfilled.
This has been a strange summer. Half the time, I’ve been so thoroughly inside the editing of The Unmapping that I can hardly think about anything else. During this period, I make life mistakes. Like, messing up the timing of a medication that threw my body off for a month and a half. And, in a haze, ordering a truck full of mulch.
And then there are other periods where life seems so wide open. Like when I finally remembered that we live next to a lake, where we can swim. Months after dreaming about buying a kayak and a paddleboard, we finally bought our kayak and paddleboard. I signed up for guided walks on flower and moth identification and a Talmud study class. We’ve been biking everywhere—everywhere. We’ve gotten multiple flat tires. When my bike had a flat on the day of our Talmud class, we got it fixed, biked two blocks, and it was flat again—the bike repair kids didn’t take out the staple that had fixed itself in the rubber—so we threw up our hands and played tennis instead.
The moth walk was a highlight. I asked a friend along who I was sure would say no. But she said yes. So I had to go. We drove to a marsh twenty minutes away, as far from city light as you can get in the area. We walked through the tall grasses and trees in the dark. Then there was light. UV light. He’d set up light stations that were total bug havens. Completely swarmed by creatures with a dozen different bodily geometries.
The guide said he was a moth enthusiast. This was clear by the way that, every time we saw a moth, he would say, “Wow!” And there were hundreds of moths. “Wow!” “Wow!” “Wow!” Yet he didn’t know many of their names. We’d ask about one and he would say, “I don’t know, a brown one?” He said there are 25,000 different species of moths in these lands. It would be impossible to know them all.
Some the guide knew, however. Like the huge and leafy sphinx moth. The white-and-black striped zebra moth. The albino webworm moth, which looked like a moth’s ghost. As bugs flew into our ears and noses, he stuck his face forward and took photos excitedly.
And maybe, the guide said, maybe we would see an endangered moth. The pink-streaked moth. He’d seen exactly one before. If this happened, it would be a blessing. And it could also help fund conservation efforts for the marshes under the Endangered Species Act.
At the very end of the night, it came. A pink-streaked moth.
But it was too quick to photograph. It streaked in and streaked away leaving a pink tinge in our eyes. And our guide whooped in the air and said this was a special thing. An endangered moth! And we found it. Or it found us. Yet, not so much. I looked it up later. Apparently this moth is not endangered; merely “threatened.”
I’ll be honest: I was more interested in this guide’s perspective than the moths themselves. While others were examining moths, I was examining him. What are the mechanics of a mind that feels so much joy in the unknown? Life is filled with unknowing right now. I saw a fake coyote and thought it was real and nearly called the authorities until I saw the sticker on its head. I don’t know what to do with my brain now that my edits are finished and the days are still long. Our garden is a big blank question mark. There is another big question in our lives that will have to wait and wait and wait. We are waiting for the unknown. We are waiting for it to become known. Afraid to make mistakes. Making them anyway. Getting a truckful of mulch.
But the key part of making mistakes is learning how to fix them. The mulch we used for our lawn barely made a dent, so after several days of pretending the pile didn’t exist, I posted it to give away on various free forums and marketplaces. Slowly people have been chipping away at it (ha ha). They are grateful, I’m grateful. Now only a quarter-truckful remains. And what will happen to it? Who will take it and what will they do with it?
I have no idea.
-Denise
PS: Things are moving very nicely on the Unmapping. Major edits are done and I have a month before I have to think about copyedits and such. I’ve seen the cover art — it’s not final yet, but if you want a taste, check out the amazing artwork of Ibrahim Rayintakath. Also, may have some exciting news on the audiobook front soon.
PPS: Things I really enjoyed this month include:
The book Piranesi by Susanna Clarke — so good! After you read it, read this interesting article expanding on its inspirations in C.S. Lewis lore
Fascinating story about Kafka’s friendship/collaboration with Max Broad
I’m practicing an excerpt from the Lalo cello concerto for my community orchestra audition - the whole thing is really beautiful. Another stunning piece of cello music is this song from the House of the Dragon (or is it a viola? I can’t tell)
PPPS: Cat:
