Gin and Tonic and Diet Pepsi, Each With Lime

This week, you had asked me to come earlier, at 4p.m. so that we could get the cuttings from your garden for my container garden on the back deck of my new apartment. Our apartment is a second story two-bedroom, with cathedral ceilings and sliding glass doors that lead onto the back deck, a small 4' x 8' wooden loft above the grass, with iron railings. I want to turn our deck into a bit of a garden oasis. People living in cities are able to have beautiful deck and rooftop gardens, and I've looked online for ideas. I'm perhaps more excited about creating this little garden on the back deck than I am about arranging furniture, hanging window treatments and fabrics (we can't paint the walls, but as my friend Mary the Graphic Designer pointed out, we can hang fabrics on the walls).

I assumed I would need to buy plants at local nurseries, but then last week while sitting on the porch with you, you pointed out the beautiful orange Oriental poppies lining your stone wall under the tall pine trees on the northeast side of your garden. You were given only one Oriental poppy as a gift nearly thirty years ago, and you planted it along the base of your stone wall, next to your potting shed. The poppy spread itself over the years until it stretched along the entire length of the stone wall, dozens of poppies nodding their papery orange heads in the breezes.
I was impressed with these poppies, these russet beauties that have been in your garden for longer than I've been alive. Impressed and humbled. You don't usually think of flowers as being old, and of course they aren't the same flowers, but generations upon generations of poppies gracing the low stone wall. I also learned last week of the "oldest" flower in your garden: a beautiful blue iris that you planted some sixty years ago. A present from your Aunt Mae, the aunt who taught in Japan and who had the house in Hamburg with the beautiful rose gardens.

You mentioned that you have divided the iris bulbs in previous years and have given some to relatives. It was then that I had the idea to ask you for cuttings from your garden to begin my container garden on the deck. I would much rather have plants that originated in your garden and were passed down to me, the way recipes are often handed down through the generations. My family doesn't pass down secrets of the best marinara sauce or how the science of the perfect pastry crust. We pass down papery orange poppies and bulbs containing the genesis of beautiful blue irises; autumn sedum and ivy in gold Asian pots. You were happy to help me get my garden started with the help of a few plants from your garden. We planned to meet earlier the following week, so we could get the plants before dinner.

When I arrived at your house at four o'clock this time, it took me a minute to realize that you weren't there. It didn't register at first that your car wasn't in the driveway; it wasn't until I jiggled your locked back door that I realized I was alone. I moved my car out of your driveway and parked along the street under the shade of a tree, so you'd be able to pull back in. I went to your back patio, and set down the flowers I'd brought you on your little porch table. Your patio smelled of old house or stale cigarette ash, depending on the direction of the June breezes. I settled into one of your rocking patio chairs, and just sat there quietly for a few minutes. I have never, in all my life, until that moment, been alone at your house. You were always there; Grandpa was always there; family members were usually there. It was very quiet and peaceful, being there by myself, sitting on your back porch overlooking the garden. I pulled out my journal and began to write, while listening to the birds play around your feeders and splash in your stone birdbath.

I had written about two pages when my aunt Lanie and her granddaughter Brooke came around the side of the house. They were going to go walking in Riverside Creek after a long day of running errands. They didn't seem too surprised to see me there alone; my aunt said you'd probably be along shortly. Sure enough, you came around the corner only a minute after them. You greeted us all, noticed your flowers on the table, and said goodbye to Lanie and Brooke as they walked off in the direction of the creek.

We headed immediately for your potting shed and you got a paring knife. Over in your herb garden, you dug up some Autumn Sedum and primroses. I fetched some small plastic pots from the shed, and we put the cuttings in them, then took the pots back to the shed where you filled them with potting soil and put the three pots on a tray for me to take home. I carried the tray to the back porch and set it on the bench, and we sat down. There are more plants that you want to give to me, but I said that those would be good for the first week. You want to give me aloe and impatiens, and a few other plants as well.

I could tell as you sat down in the chair closest to mine that you were tired and hadn't thought about dinner yet. "Tell you what," I said. "How about instead of making dinner tonight, we have some cool drinks on the porch instead?" "I'm going to have a gin and tonic," you replied immediately. You have always liked your Manhattans, so I suppose gin and tonic is your summertime drink of choice. Or it could have been that you had limes in the refrigerator that day. We went inside, and you fixed your drink and brought out the lime, and sliced a sliver off with a paring knife. I used the knife to cut through the green flesh and add a sliver of lime to my Diet Pepsi on ice. Drinks in hand, we wandered back down and out to the porch, where you lit a cigarette.

We sat, sipped our drinks, talked, and listened to the neighbors, as they mowed their lawns. We watched the sunlight change as the sun lowered in the sky, making different parts of the white picket fence in your herb garden glow in honey-colored light. You mentioned that you like to sit out here summer mornings and watch the sun light up each house down the street; you can watch it illuminate one house and backyard, then the next, all the way down. I tried to taste the lime in my Diet Pepsi; I either should have cut a bigger slice or should have squeezed the juice out of it. I think I would prefer Lime and Coke. Either way, I think adding a slice of lime to a drink is a great idea. It just makes the drink so much more summery.

You are growing a moonflower in a pot by your trellis, and it will be blooming soon, you said. Your next door neighbor used to grow a batch of moonflowers in her garden and you would enjoy watching them open up in the summer evenings. Your Oriental poppies were already finished by this week, and you planned to cut the stalks down, like you do every year. You pointed out which apple tree in your yard was good for applesauce, and which one was good for pies, and which one produced strawberry apples. You talked about the vegetable garden you used to have, with thirteen rows of corn, carrots, potatoes, squash, and all sorts of vegetables, surrounded by a white picket fence. You pointed out the oak tree that Grandpa cut the lower limbs off of, because my dad and the kids loved to climb it and my dad got a huge sliver in his calf once from climbing that tree. Once Grandpa cut the limbs off the oak tree, the kids took to climbing the pine trees that line the northeastern side of your yard, which were small when you first moved into the house. Now the tower up above everything, dwarfing the houses and casting shade across your backyard.

I enjoyed just sitting on the back porch with you, and sipped my Diet Pepsi with lime slowly so it would last longer. Sometimes we sat in comfortable silence, in between our conversations. While sitting there with you, talking, and not talking, I got the strongest feeling: This is one of the best things I am doing with my life right now. This, dinners (or in tonight's case, drinks) with you once a week, is one of the best things I could possibly be doing with my time, with my life. I am sure of it.

After about an hour and a half, I got up to leave. You were planning to mow your lawn once the sun sank lower and it cooled down a bit. I thanked you for the cuttings, kissed you on the cheek, and drove off.