Bulbs left out by a neighbor. I’ll find out next year what color these are.

I was clearing out rosemary from the garden plot next to my apartment and trying to give it away online when, on Saturday evening, walking to the local supermarket, I chanced upon a bin half-full of gladioli bulbs. A stalk with withered blooms that had lost all color was the only clue for identification.

Some neighbor’s excess made a perfect match for the space my pruning had opened up. I didn’t take all of the bulbs, just five or six. They were in the ground by nightfall.

This would be a perfect little homily about how the universe provides — sharing and caring — except that later that evening I remembered that a cat had shit in my garden, several months earlier.

Instead of moving it, the cat’s owner had tried halfheartedly to cover up the poop — whether out of ignorance or malice I do not know. Thanks to the Internet (which is really great for questions like this) I learned that when a domestic animal has defecated in your soil, you should wait a full year before eating anything from the garden. That was kind of a bummer, especially because I had just planted a bunch of seeds a few weeks earlier.

But… oh well. They call it permaculture for a reason. I had forgotten all about those events. Just kind of got in the habit of container gardening.

The rosemary is at the far other end of the garden plot and it’s been almost six months. The herb only rarely comes in contact with the soil. Nevertheless, we had a lot of rain this spring and the plot slopes downhill.

Infinitesimally low risk is not no risk, particularly not when other people are involved. I was faced with the awkward task of messaging back the three people who had asked for some of my rosemary and explaining that they couldn’t have it after all.

When you have chronic anemia you pretty much always feel fatigued and sickly, so I was able to beg off for health reasons while still being perfectly truthful.

Still don’t know what I’ll do to fill the remaining space. I was thinking of maybe putting in some chrysanthemums or another fall annual.

It occurs to me that this is what we as women do. When nothing else is attainable we at least try to make things pretty. This, for me, is the essence of femininity.

Maybe it’s also why I make my living as a graphic designer. It’s hard to say.

This statue was placed in my garden about a year after I moved in, I don’t know by who. She presides over all of it. Beauty and ugliness, flowers and cat shit. I feel lucky to have a home and garden. Wish I could give more back.