The Yellow House

I did my first, real-deal season-extending gardening this year. This means that as opposed to planting things in the spring, I actually planted them in October and protected them as they slowly grew through the winter. By the time spring rolled around, we had mature lettuce and leafy greens earlier in the year than we’ve ever had them before, which is great, in some ways, but has also started to weird me out a little. We tend to think of leafy things as tender, young, springy food, but the lettuce I am harvesting is eight months old. Kind of crazy, right?

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Most of the important events going on in my life right now are evident on the evening walk around the house:

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I entertain the big questions with frequency but allow them to slide away unanswered with equal frequency, which is one of the 3,798 reasons I should probably never bear children into the world. This is a roundabout way of getting to my point, which is Dear Stephanie, I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. Stephanie wrote me the kindest email weeks ago asking lots of questions, mostly answerable, except for one: How do you do it? » Click to read more

spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window,into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully

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I am a bit mulish. I am wary of the Next Big Thing. This time of year, it’s difficult to keep this part of me in check. The lists. I hate all the lists. This Big Thing was cool in 2012, but all these Big Things will be SO IN in 2013. And so on. I am starting to sound like your cantankerous grandpa, so hear me out: We are smarter and more creative than this. I can’t help but think we all need to swallow down a hefty dose of I-don’t-care-what-the-eff-anyone-else-thinks.

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