Turning Over a New Leaf

My bed felt too good to leave that summer morning years ago. I yawned, fluffed my pillow, and rolled over. The house seemed quiet. Hopefully no one was around to tell me to get up.

“Get up!” my sister yelled from the hallway.

“For what?” I yelled back with no intention of leaving the bed.

“We told Nannie we’d pull weeds.” My sister now loomed over me, hand on her hip.

My grandmother’s farmhouse in Richmond was surrounded by flowerbeds which always required attention, but we loved helping her with the work. One tedious task was pulling the first flush of spring weeds from her rose beds. They were periodically smothered in wiregrass and other low-growing things which we simply referred to disgustedly as “chickweed.”

My sister and I pulled for hours that day. Starting at one end of the long bed, by the handfuls we ripped out wheelbarrow loads until we neared the opposite end. Tired of wiping gritty sweat from my face, I could think only of escaping on my bicycle to meet friends. But, just one patch of chickweed left and we’d be finished.

I stopped to stretch and noticed a thick stand of violets under a nearby crepe myrtle. For years we’d been unable to get rid of that particular mass, try as we might, and we knew we’d be wrestling with it that year too.

“We’ll pull that when we finish this,” I pointed with resignation to the chickweed at my feet.

“You can leave the violets be this year,” Nannie said as she walked towards them. From her old galvanized bucket she sprinkled a small handful of fertilizer into the leafy mass. We stared in disbelief.

“Did you just fertilize those weeds?” We were puzzled. She had always wished those violets gone.

“It’s only a weed if you don’t want it,” Nannie said, casually going about her business.

Baffled by her about face, we agreed to leave the violets alone and continued with our task at hand. I looked down and noticed several strands of chickweed lodged in my shoelaces. I plucked one stem and absent-mindedly studied the small piece of nuisance.

Although I’d pulled tons of that stuff over the years I had never bothered to look at it closely. “Hey!” I yelled to Nannie. “The stems on these things are square! Look! The flowers are like tiny orchids!” What a remarkable discovery – I thought.

What I had “discovered,” I learned years later, was that the sprawling nightmare is not chickweed. It’s actually purple dead-nettle, a non-native intrusive plant with purplish-green leaves and tiny purple flowers. The plant is found, well, all over the place. Unknown to me at the time.

“Can we keep these?” I asked excitedly, pointing to the last bit we had yet to pull from the rose bed. Suddenly I was determined to preserve something so special. “They might be the last of their kind!”

“Yeah, except for those.” my sister said sarcastically, pointing towards the barn where at least two acres of pasture appeared dusty purple from the masses of dead-nettle growing there.

Nannie stared down at the remaining patch of alien green in her rose bed. “You want to leave those weeds?” she asked.

“But it’s only a weed if you don’t want it,” I grinned. The problem I cursed every year was suddenly something unique and worthwhile to me.

Nannie smiled and said nothing. She walked again to the crepe myrtle where she sprinkled another small handful of fertilizer onto the violets growing beneath. Admittedly, they had turned into quite a display after weeks of benefitting from her new policy.

Nannie had shifted her view. Practiced at picking her battles, rather than fight the violets she chose to embrace them and by doing so turned a headache into a showpiece. Satisfaction can come with a simple change in attitude. Nannie learned that long ago and taught it now with the help of a few insignificant weeds.

I understood her change of heart and marveled at how smoothly she turned a problem into a bonus. From her reaction though, I guessed the same didn’t apply to my remaining clumps of chickweed in the rose bed. Sure, there were acres of the scourge growing just across the fence, but the remnant at my feet intrigued me. Nannie headed to the house as my sister and I stared at the scraggly patch I’d lobbied to preserve. Maybe she hadn’t understood my similar reversal of opinion.

Nannie was just a few steps past us when she stopped, turned around, and with a grin sprinkled a small handful of fertilizer onto my chickweed.

Stuart M. Perkins

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Nannie’s Roses

Nannie would do it here, I think.

“Snip”

And probably right here.

“Snip”

This one could use it too.

“Snip”

With new clippers in hand I trimmed spent flower stems from sad looking rose bushes in the backyard. These were nothing like the ones my grandmother used to grow. When I was a child Nannie had dozens of healthy rose bushes vibrantly blooming in the yard around her farmhouse. I don’t think she had purchased a single one of them.

Some may have been given to her by friends, but most she had rooted herself. Usually people admire the gift of a flower arrangement for days until the flowers fade and are thrown away. Not Nannie. Almost upon arrival, flower arrangements of any kind and especially those containing roses were dismantled, clipped, stripped, dipped in rooting powder and plugged into her rooting bed. Some months later and voila! One more rose bush for her yard or to give to someone “down at church”.

As a child it seemed a miracle to me that short thorny sticks with a few wilted leaves could become anything at all. I said so to Nannie, remarking that I thought it a miracle and asking how she could be sure they would grow. She agreed it was a miracle and said she was never sure they would grow; she had faith they would grow.

Nannie’s faith was the backbone of her existence. I’ve never known a more faithful Christian than my grandmother. She didn’t preach about what should be done, she shared her faith showing what could be done. A true teacher by example. Oh sure, she often asked why I hadn’t been in Sunday School the week before, or said if I went to church the next Sunday she’d sit with me, and other guiding comments any grandmother would make but she had a way of weaving her suggestions and lessons into everyday conversations. We had many good and deep conversations while working in her rose beds, most of them about the importance faith and family played in her life.

I’ve never claimed to be a good Christian. Actually she never made that claim about herself either, being a modest woman, but to everyone else she certainly was. All who met her were struck by the love she had for her family and her endless solid faith in God.

Nannie died twenty five years ago. Only twice in my life have I attempted poetry and both pieces were written about her shortly after her death. I reread this poem after all these years and had to smile. Economy of words has never been my forte when writing but I had to get it out, I suppose. With few alterations I’ve included it below.

I’m solid in my own beliefs and thankful that a remarkable woman, who happened to be my own grandmother, was there to guide me in such a way that I learned early on about the power of faith and importance of family. But this poem isn’t about me and my beliefs or love of family as much as it is about Nannie and my respect for the lifelong commitment she showed to hers.

 

 

Nannie’s Roses

 

I loved helping Nannie

With her roses. One day

She tried telling me something

That went sort of this way:

 

“I like watching things bloom,

Not just flowers, you know.

With the right sort of touch

You make anything grow”.

 

People and roses,

She told me that day,

Both need some training

To grow the right way.

 

“Sometimes they ramble

To grow where they could,

But it’s for me to see

That they grow where they should”.

 

And I knew she meant us

For as everyone knows,

Each one in her family

She considered a rose.

 

She rooted us strongly.

We were tended and groomed.

Then she’d smile as she waited,

She knew we would bloom.

 

She said “Family and roses

Were trained by my hand.

The old ones grew tall

And learned how to stand.

 

My younger ones now

Are not quite so tame.

Their blooms may be different

But I love them the same.

 

And I know with some work

And the help of my hands

They’ll grow as the others

And with them they’ll stand”.

 

“But these older ones now,

Still need help today?”

I asked and she said,

“No I’ve shown them the way.

 

I’ve given them love

And plenty of room.

They’re on their own now

To grow and to bloom.

 

For both family and roses

There does come the time

To depend on their own strength

And let go of mine.”

 

Now we and the roses,

Alone we all stand.

Sadly she’s gone

With her strong guiding hand.

 

Each a rose in her garden,

We were guided with love.

Now she’s watching us bloom

From somewhere above.

 

As we bloomed in her garden,

We’re all sure somehow,

That she’s a rose blooming

In His garden now.

 

Stuart M. Perkins

Virginia Living!

Just a little announcement:

I’m excited to let you know I have an essay appearing in the June issue of Virginia Living magazine!

It was a thrill to work with the kind folks at the magazine again (I also had an essay published back in their February 2016 issue) and as a native Virginian, like my parents and theirs, it was especially fun to contribute to a publication I’ve had in my own home over the years.

Below is a link to my essay in the online version of Virginia Living.  Check it out and if you like please comment on their site below the essay!

http://www.virginialiving.com/home-garden/a-new-leaf/

Thanks to all those who’ve asked what I’ve been up to lately. Blogging continues to be fun and has proven to be an exciting pathway to some great opportunities.

Stuart M. Perkins