well it's like this,

today i was speaking with someone i work with about one of her favorite topics: her tomato garden. for weeks, i have found her in the kitchen engrossed in preparations for the day, and somehow we will come round to the topic of her concern that the forest of tomato plants she planted back in april/may would be thwarted by one thing or another: the too-much rain, the vines overgrowing each other and so blocking the sunlight needed to turn color, the quandry about which sort of posts to use to support the heaviest branches--she has never before seen such huge vines! and oh my gosh, when they'd finally gotten the needed support, growing now over what sounds like an enormous metal or some other structure (i havent seen it but im curious), the whole forest began to green and bloom and fatten and now, occasionally redden, even with all the rain. Oh my gosh, you have no idea!

really, i think about them alot, her tomatos -is that tomato with an e for plural (tomatoes) or not? i can never get it right. anyway, she comes alive with such sincere and innocent enthusiasm that a woman most people see and see tattoos, age, weight, class--blah blah-- here she is, in the morning kitchen, shining eyes and telling me about how her estranged husband came over and penitently put up this enormous and amazing structure to support her tomatos and it is a thing of beauty. hers.

she does most things with complete commitment: peels potatos, hauls off the cover to the bottom of the fridge to clear off the dust and grime that has accuulated, bakes a solid bakers dozen loaves of bread every morning and mostly remembers to get them out in time when the timer goes off, is compassionate but unsentimental, drinks whiskey, loves fishing, misses her mother who taught her how to fish, praises what is good and is diligently cautious and circumspect about what is clearly not, is completely intolerant of fools but considered like someone who has been burned and remembers it well. esp the learning. she is the kind of person  i would trust if push came to shove. and: she has a profound intelligence about food, which is very rare. artistic intelligence about it, meaning she really loves it.

it is possible to get through almost anything with the right ingredients present, and impossible if they are not. i mean, those ingredients which are neccessary to you alone or especially, and you have no choice about them.

once, when i thought that the pain of what i was living i couldnt endure, i took my father's advice, and learned to meditate. i remember everything about that time; it was when i learned to perceive things more deeply. not just emotionally, and sensorily, or through a network of empathies, but looking further into a meaning which was unrelated to, and didnt originate with, any pathy, sym or anti or otherwise. i remember the time of year, i remember places absolutely, i actually remember nearly objectively my own stage of development. isnt that funny? i was prompted by pain, i was standing at the cloisters in the bronx, in the parking lot, about to climb into an old saab and make the long drive back upstate. my father-in-law had just died, and although i loved him, and was sad about his death, it wasnt that. i wont say, but suffice: i didnt think i could find the onramp to the palisades parkway, or the strength to unlock the door when we got there and see a room full of evidence. a wall hanging, a couch, the clock. i didnt think so. but my father stood in the parking lot, hugging me, and he repeated instructions to me over and over. it was november.

today, miss b, as i call her, moved from tomatos to the subject of some funny stalks her sister had saved from the back of her truck "after 8 months!" and gave them to her to grow. she had been skeptical: will they grow? and she planted them in rooting powder and (she shrugged in perfect amazement) they did! they burst! and they were just like the flowers you find in a hawaiian lei. i told her: orchids are funny things, peculiar, they have a different thing going on. ive never been a natural orchid person, some folks are, but they are amazing and rewarding flowers if you stick it out. when juliet was born, her dad brought a bouquet of tiny, delicate purplish-blue blooms in the hundreds and they sat next to my bed like forever.

there's just no telling what can happen, or to whom, or when or how. only, there's: orchids, november, kindness, births, heartbreak and other assorted reasons to keep going on, like a really good mystery play.

ps how funny is this? today the blogcritics review came out and looking at the homepage of their site, i saw that there was a dvd release review on a movie made in 1974 by werner herzog called the enigma of kaspar hauser. which was a play i was working on back in 2000, when the above cloisters story happened.