virtual commitment

I've been avoiding the back deck.  There are good reasons for this avoidance: 1) I've barely been home, day or night; 2) this dissertation won't write itself, honey; and, until now, 3) the presence of the most fearsome mosquitos that have ever bitten me (and I've spent substantial time in the South Carolina Lowcountry and in India). Swatting these mosquitos is like hitting a baseball: you actually feel yourself make contact.  It was enough to look up in the morning and see three of them, enormous and engorged, resting on the wall behind my bed, or to push open the door at night and see them racing to greet me, like a dog would; I had no desire to bleed myself dry reading on the back deck.

There are other reasons, too.  I visited someone else's Brooklyn roof deck a few weekends ago, where people compared notes about gardening.  When asked, "Oh, what do you grow on your deck?", I found myself saying, "Oh, er, well, nothing really."  I felt like the doctor who smokes, the dentist who chews taffy, the chef who eats Tombstone frozen pizza.  It's a sublet; I may not even be here in springtime.  Whereas leaving the previous gardens broke my heart, committing to this one would be hard.

But last weekend's weather was so glorious and crisp that I could not resist going outside and lingering a bit; and I went out again today.  Without meaning to, I began to size up the deck, and the neglected yard of the neighbors below me.

Every garden sets distinct challenges, but a vast number of potential solutions: and it's that space in between, that feeling-out of the fantasy within restrictions, that prolonged hesitation before the commitment, which is so pleasurable and also so overwhelming.  Herewith, the boundaries, restrictions and conditions:

There is no one behind us, just a giant brick wall covered with ivy - a great advantage in terms of privacy, and aesthetically as well, as I explained to my friend last spring.  We do have neighbors close on either side, and (at the risk of seeming unfriendly) (which I am) though I think that front stoops are for socializing with your neighbors, a back deck or yard should give you a place to hide, if you want to.  (I do.)  To the left are things worth hiding and showing: an untidy tangle of wires, the neighbor's gold-leafed Japanese maple, an enormous dogwood that is glorious and red and no doubt heavy with white blossoms in the spring.  There is also a protruding brick wall that I rather like.  To the right is a purple-leafed plum tree and a grill that has rusted in place.  Below us, there is an unfortunate fabric-roofed arbor, many overgrown pots, and a great deal of concrete; the first two at least are easily altered.  My roommate has placed some plastic chairs and a plastic table outside, and there is a valiant little basil bush so starved of nutrients that its leaves are grapefruit-colored.  Mornings are cool and shady, mid-afternoons quite bright, though the far back of the yard stays dark.

I thought that I might begin to write some recipes.  I don't have any plans to stay here long-term (or money, or time).  But transience, in a way, is a luxury: I can pretend to do whatever I'd like.  I could design this garden just for me, or for my roommate, or for the family below me, or for imaginary clients I don't know.  I could pretend to continue to rent; I could pretend to own.  I could finally get with the trend and grow virtual vegetables.  I can choose any palette I'd like.  My heart belongs to green and silver-white gardens in which lush growth alternates with spartan formality and structure.  Silvery-white gardens look especially nice at night - which is, after all, when you most often see them, after you come home from work, and they have a way of looking crisp even in the dampest, hottest New York summers.  But as long as I'm gardening virtually, why not also try something different?  Lately I have become entranced by a deep orangey-red, somewhere in between Chinese laquer-red and Hermes orange; I think of it as Italian aristocrat red.  It is too bold to be used as anything other than an accent, but it looks beautiful with many different colors - with grey and greige especially, but also with  saturated, deep green and brick - the exact combination of the building behind us.  And then there are the early-spring blues and pinks and purples of Villa La Foe.  Maybe I will even imitate my beloved Max Liebermann garden and throw in some lipstick reds...?

Stay posted.