I have grown older with a house and garden in the same place for 40 years. I have outlasted shrubbery, trees, perennial plantings and neighbors.
I have watched the repairs I made on the house gradually deteriorate and need more repairs.
I have observed stability in certain flower beds, like the lilies, spreading. But other things, like weeds the bamboo, the honeysuckles, the trumpet creeper vine and the Virginia creeper are taking over.
I look ahead sometimes over a glass of wine watching the sunset and the birds feeding back and forth at the feeders, and I wonder what will happen here in the years ahead.
Like the “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” interview question, I wonder, if I am alive, if I will still be here, and if new invasive species will surprise me and overrun even more of the yard. I wonder whether the leak in the shed roof will get fixed or not, what things will go wrong with furnace or with my arthritis.
The longer I ride the circuit, the more I become like objects that have aged, and even with the lessons of the house and garden, I keep being surprised. I am not separate from those objects and events like I thought I was.
Who knew? How was I supposed to know?
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the third week of Deep Summer. In the meantime, think about it: Where will you and your invasive species be in ten years?
