2004-04-24 - 10:47 p.m.
Today, as my client and I walked down rows of plants, I saw pansies, and was reminded of my first "garden". When I was 9 or so, I picked a path of lawn, surrounded it with rocks, and dug it all up. Used saved money to buy pansies, yellow and purple ones. I bought them at Thal's Hardware. I remember a lady telling me how to take care of them, to pull off dead petals for best results. I planted them and painstakingly took care of them all summer. Weeding, pulling off dead bits. I remember the petals being velvety smooth, and I remember how chips of white paint would fall on the hens 'n chicks and the soil was always dark dark brown almost black and damp and cool. I loved finding snails, worms, grubs. Their tiny lives seemed so terribly important, and uprooting them made me feel almost empty and raw.
The next summer I planted petunias, and the next summer snapdragons.
I read in the book, about a lady who, after being raped, couldn't walk anywhere without her keys in her right hand, a key between each finger of her tight fist. Just in case, just in case. Get a shot in.
I thought about how I do that. How I never, ever, ever walk anywhere alone without keys in hand, only I don't make a bristling fist of keys, I just use the biggest and hold it tightly, tensely, like a knife. Pointing out, some kind of strange small steely security blanket.
Silly. The reasoning is, if someone attacked, maybe you could at least get a few jabs with the key in.
Just get a few jabs in.
Fuck.
Today at work I learned that I can make eggs, fried potatos and bacon while shaving my boss's face and giving a haircut. I also learned that I can shave another woman's legs. And I can give a 130-pound dog, recently impounded for attacking and biting a man, a pain pill by shoving it down his huge throat with my bare hand and not feeling nervous.
Fancy!
faith pours from your walls drowning your calls
