Gardening and Books, but not Gardening Books
May 9, 2008 by Stefanie
The plant sale today was marvelous. We arrived to wait at about 9:30 for the doors to open at 11:00. Gardeners with their carts and wagons and wheelbarrows milled about. There was the low hum in the air that comes from hundreds of people talking. My Bookman and I found an unoccupied bench and parked our cart beside us. We had forgotten to bring books with us. How could we forget? Since we couldn’t read we talked about what books we were excited about reading.
My Bookman is looking forward to a new book by Matthew Woodring Stover, the author of Blade of Tyshalle which he loved. The book won’t be out until the end of the year. We are both looking forward to the Carlos Ruiz Zafon book to be published next spring that is a prequel to Shadow of the Wind. I was looking forward to reading a lot of things, but at the time, I was anticipating picking up A Field Guide to Getting Lost at the library later in the afternoon.
The time waiting flew by. We entered the building about 11:05 and had all of our plants and some we were picking up for friends, found, selected and paid for by 11:35. My orderly pre-planning aided by a numbered map handed out while we were waiting upon which we drew our path through the fray and my Bookman’s astounding cart handling abilities allowed us to purchase every single plant on our list. Now we just have to plant them. Which we began doing this afternoon. Every year we dig up a little more lawn with the goal of someday being lawn-free, at least in the front yard since the dog rules the backyard. Perhaps I will take a picture once we get everything in, though it won’t be very pretty since the plants are all very small, that’s why we can buy them so inexpensively (most are $1.50).
But enough about gardening. I did get to read a little bit last night. I luxuriated in Margaret Atwood’s poetry. I am almost two-thirds of the way through The Door and finding it absolutely fantastic. I swear there is nothing that woman can’t write.
This afternoon while taking a gardening break I began reading the book I was anticipating, A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, and I am thus far loving it and I am only on page 19. She is currently mulling over what it means to be lost while circling around a quote by Meno:
How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?
She has also liberally quoted Thoreau and Virginia Woolf. Yup, this book and I are going to get on just fine.
“A Field Guide to Getting Lost” was the book that sealed me as a Solnit fan. I took a lot of notes from that book.
This is just one of my favourite quotes from the book:
“We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away.”
Well, the only thing better than reading books is talking about them, huh?
I’ve got the Solnit book on my shelves, and between you and Dark Orpheus, I’m thinking more and more about picking it up! She really is a fabulous writer.
I too aspire to having less and less yard and more and more garden. Wow. Plants for only $1.50! No wonder you arrived so early! Thank you for the taste of the Solnit book which I will order from the library as I’m still off the new-book-buying (: for a while. And thanks to Dark Orpheus for the extended and beautiful quotation. Sounds like just my cup of tea.
The Solnit sounds really intriguing. Oh no, one more for the topply mountain. I am so impressed by your plant-buying efficiency! We need some of that around here
The Solnit sounds most intriguing - oh no, one more for the topply pile! I am most impressed by your plant buying efficiency. We could do with some of that around here. Just bottle it and send it over, could you?
Dark Orpheus, nice quote! I came upon it last night while reading. I do believe it has sealed it for me as a Solnit fan too.
Emily, that’s right, if you can’t read them, talk about them
Dorothy, you’ll definitely like this one. It is quiet and contemplative.
TJ, and even though I was early there were about 200 people ahead of me! I would have bought a lot more than I did but I have also learned that it’s a waste if I buy more than I have time and energy to plant. Between Dark Orpheus and I we will have everyone reading the Solnit book
Litlove, LOL! If only I was as efficient at the digging, planting and weeding!