Dead Letter Department #109

I spent a solid twenty minutes in the aisles of At Home yesterday contemplating outdoor containers, while also being occasionally privy to the travails of a well-dressed couple who needed all black matching pots of various sizes, so many that they had two flatbed carts toweringly full by the time they were finally finished. Their needs were very specific (as were mine, if on a smaller scale), and eventually they had at least three employees wheeling various ladders around to ascend to the upper levels and check inside all the big pots on the high shelves to see if they would magically have hidden within them the required items—which, finally, they did, and I saw them return triumphantly to their car, which must have been colossal to fit everything inside it. They seemed so delighted, and I imagined them unloading all of their containers at home to erect some sort of enormous garden with highly curated colors of plants, or perhaps some arranging an event—like trapping visitors in their garden behind an impenetrable wall of black pots.

My expedition was extended because it took me some time to convince myself that plastic really was fine. I’m sometimes weirdly snobby about stupid shit, and I had decided before I went in for my container-caressing that I wanted to buy ceramic, because I thought it would last longer and look nicer, but when I went to lift up an attractive pot, and staggered under the weight, I imagined myself making laborious grunting noises every time I had to move it even an inch, or perhaps dropping it the instant I got it out of my backseat, leaving my driveway covered in expensive mosaic shards. Suddenly plastic, which would be significantly easier to shift, and more forgiving of inevitable clumsiness, sounded a lot more appealing.

I’ve been a little fixated on the yard the past few weeks, as recent Dead Letters document, because it has felt like something tangible I can walk out of my house and do that will, hopefully, result in some sort of visible improvement. So far, it has mostly resulted in a lot of wandering around the garden center and parsing various definitions of shade, which the backyard has in abundance. It’s also not terribly immediately satisfying to, for example, plant a rhododendron which will eventually, hopefully, be large & lush, but at the moment comes up to my ankle, & optimism, even about this, is in short supply. “Well,” I told my mom, as I was showing her a row of new plantings, “it’s going to be a huge bummer if they all die,” which is not exactly the vibe you want to have after a weekend of work.

My dear J told me a story recently, when I was complaining about this very thing. At her friend L’s farm, when they plant a particularly pathetic root or seedling, L & her moms say “Good luck, stick!” When a baby goat was born, underweight & unlikely to survive, they of course named her Stick—& now, of course, having been bottle fed, she’s thriving. Since then, I’ve found myself patting various shrubbery as I finish spading soil over the roots, and telling it, “Good luck, stick!”

The plum tree is past peak, having blown her pink gown all over my driveway for a gorgeous, scented week; the daffodils are still bravely bobbing away; the grape hyacinth I think was giving its finest show yesterday, popping purple heads up in unexpected places. The first tulips are a day or two away from bloom, orangey-red first this year, & the colors are beginning to show on the buds of the later blossomers. The neighbors’ apple trees are masses of very pale pink & buds are beginning to show on all the backyard trees except the dogwood, which stays stubbornly brown until later in the season.

I have had a little more energy, with the change in light & weather, although I discovered it was a bit too early to turn the heat off a few days ago. Although I missed a couple of seasons last year, what with the various horrors, I did make a list of spring things to do: restaurants on my mental list to try, art exhibits I’ve been wanting to see, a visit to the herons when they’re nesting by the sewage plant to admire their babies. At some point I’ll likely drive down to Skagit early in the morning and take a long circuit to see the enormous uncanny fields of tulips there before the other tourists appear. I keep it on the side of the fridge that serves as my bulletin board, so when I have that restless, got to get out of the house feeling I’ll have ten or twenty options I’ve been meaning to get to.

My daily list has gotten, while I’ve been trying to dig out of the slough of despond, very granular: medicine, it says, to remind me to take that, & exerc for exercise, sometimes circled & bracketed with increasing intensity, as though the weight of the pen is going to convince me to drag the stationary bike out on my lunch break and heave myself atop it. Sometimes it even works.

reading room

After my deep Martha Wells dive, & a few installments of Ryoko Kui’s Delicious in Dungeon, I spent a fascinated week with the Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, which, despite being written between 1873 & 1884, seemed improbably up to date & surprisingly relatable. Now I’m deep into We Both Laughed in Pleasure, which is a collection of Lou Sullivan’s diaries from 1961-1991. I love diaries & letters, love the intimacy and specificity of writing that is meant for one person, or intended only for yourself, and these are particularly moving: a portrait of his life as a gay trans man, beginning with his childhood journals before he even knew such a thing existed. His voice comes through so clearly I feel like I can hear him when I’m reading, all of the little eccentricities of expression & emotion.

one good thing

While I was waiting for my friend at Roam the other day, there was a pair of women sitting at another table having a very intense, winding conversation, and at one point, one of them paused for breath, and then said, “Well, long story short—he died.”

Truly a master of storytelling. I was dying to hear the long story at that point, but managed to keep myself from switching seats to eavesdrop more effectively.

Thank you for reading these Dead Letters, & especially to a couple of recent subscribers—your support helps me continue to write. More soon, & in the mean time, may whatever stick you’ve planted have the best of luck, & shock you with its perseverance.