those crazy girls

In the fall of 2007, my sister Debbie & I went to our mother’s to clean up her garden which had overgrown with weeds and wild raspberry.
On lawn chairs beforehand, we reminisced the morning away.

When the sun reached its highest peak and we had nearly cooked our brains, we got the hoe, the bags and rakes, and went to town, tearing that garden apart.

With 11 years between us, Deb and I had experience to burn and good-seeds to sow. Although we didn’t know it, the ground was extremely hard. There would be some swearing and whether our mother liked it or not, it felt pretty good at the time.

After a few hours, I got into this rhythm of cutting nettles and stuffing bags, when I stopped for a second, and saw a compressed shadow on the lawn next to me. Looking over, there she stood with hands on hips – doing absolutely nothing.

Watching me intensely, I said, “It’s ok Deb- you be the man…”

->Well… we laughed and laughed out there in our mother’s garden. I know it sounds weird, but it was so funny – you had to be there. I could just hear our mother say “You’re doing a good job – keep going.”

Taking a page from her thoughts, I wondered what the neighbours would think of those crazy girls out there.

Years later, I posted this story online, along with a photograph of a 17th century gossamer nymph of golden spendour and remembered that day in the sun. If youth could be measured through the memory of sunburned afternoons, any lifetime could return to a cleared garden green.

Amid the tinkling river of pearl rippled medallions, the scent of Bergamot is ever near. Of a father’s birthday girl: the wiser more impulsive offering was made that day. For a youthful heart catching the light from any source is but a lark, a laugh, a life.

Lisa Gray ~ 320 words ~ Copyright © January 2025