I often feel ghosts around me. As I lounge
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| Perfect Design |
on the couch reading a book I sense people coming through the
door with the edge if my eye. I feel the ghosts inside me as I go about my daily life mimicking repeated gestures and actions from a thousand years of imprinting.
I planted new plants in my high walled my back, now a sheltered space for drinks around the table and modest barbecues. Not
wanting my plants to dry out I unwind the hose and water my plants. Then I use the hose to swill the
old blue cobblestones, laid there when the house was built in 1870. A perfect example
of functional Victorian design, these bricks are in varying shades of blue and
grey. They are laid in a brick pattern towards a central line which is laid the
other way, making a perfect channel for dirty water to swill down the
drain.
In no time the yard is shining clean, clear
of all the compost and the detritus of weeding. My plants are looking perky.
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| Herb Corner |
As I wield the hose and the yard brush
I am filled with the ghost of another woman with brawny arms: the queen of the
back regions of the house, who has her own back staircase which she climbs at
night. up two flights to the attics where she lives in her designated space.
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| Looking perky |
Back garden looks gorgeous Wendy. Like you, when I find myself mimicking and repeating century or more old tasks that's when the ghosts slide in. Sometimes when I'm working in my garden I see my grandmother's hands - for me hands are often the key to other lives - I hear her voice too. I'm sure in the act of gardening we tap into the latent creativity women have invested in their yard or kitchen gardens, their pots and sinks, as well as their grander flower gardens...such rich material here...
ReplyDeleteHi Avril
DeleteI have a feeling we writers cultivate these ghosts so that they live again in various guises, injecting the energy of their lived lives to empower our fiction..