Boxwood in the Garden

I’ve had a boxwood growing in my garden for five years, and I just scored another. I had to fight for it – Plantation brought in 24 last Thursday, and by that evening, when I arrived, they were all sold. This week I tried again, and managed to snag one for myself. Buxus Calgary.

To me, they smell like Spanish gardens. Boxwood is what’s used for the low hedging in Spanish gardens (and, I suspect, in other European gardens), and it gives the gardens a citrusy-musky scent, the perfect undertone for roses and lavender.

Mine aren’t noticeably fragrant until I bury my nose in them, except on hot, humid days when the smell carries a little further, and I can pretend I’m at the Alhambra.

My photos of the boxwood were dull, but I caught a nice shot of part of the garden with the late sun shining through the neighbour’s trees.

Maureen

The Renovation Dance

Once again. still, forever, I’m doing the renovation dance: working around guys working in the house, working through waiting and hammering and questions and oops. Leaving the house to avoid paint fumes and fresh varathane on the floors. Working at the library, in the park, at a coffee shop.

Somehow my work continues, but it’s interrupt-driven, coming in fits and spurts.

And some days, that’s a relief. I can’t dive into the new project until I finish the old, with its multitude of details, and the endless renos keep me from getting there, keep me, again and again, from needing to dive into a new story and failing. That’s the hardest moment and the greatest fear. What if I can’t? And how do I do it anyway, with all the endless interruptions? How do I simply take that leap, and immerse myself in the new story?

I’m picking away at it, working on bits, pretending to make some headway. Telling myself, no, really, it is all progress. It’s all useful. It’ll help later. But I still don’t dive in. Perhaps it’s a fear of falling.

Maureen

Writing and Doubt

I found a lovely quote by Julia Cameron: “For an artist, “I don’t know” is the hard time. It is the season between seasons when you are not sure what you are making and if you are making anything worthwhile. All artists go through seasons of rooted joy and seasons of rootless restlessness and doubt. It goes with the territory. If we knew, always, what is is we know, there would be no new land to push forward to. We would do and redo what it is we do – and that is not the artist’s life. Ours is a life of invention.”

Sitting with “I don’t know” and doubt and restlessness is an odd thing. Confidence comes with experience, but not, I think, for writers. The doubt returns, over and over, as we struggle to pin down exactly what the story is trying to be. And yet it’s that very exploration that’s so fascinating.

Maureen