I halted all reasonable and normal activity yesterday to dig up one of the massive Hostas in my new garden. The garden itself is charming. The bone structure, one might say, is there, but Our Dear Lady, which is what I’ve been calling the person from whom we bought this house, which is the obvious choice given how much Bleak House I’ve been listening to, and yet have still So Far To Go…where was I? Oh yes, Our Dear Lady had some kind of fascination with Hostas. The place is veritably stuffed with them.
But here’s the thing, Hostas, while solid and indestructible, are ghastly to my recriminating gaze. They are right up there on my list of hated plants with the Arborvitae and the Aspidistra. Sure, all three of these go on without care and concern and will even after the apocalypse. They will still be standing after we are nuked by Russia for having, unaccountably, nuked them. When the landscape is a barren waste, there will be the Hosta, pale purple tendrils flailing around in the chemical breeze. And then someone will turn to me, supposing I survive, and bitterly reproaxch me for digging mine up and flinging them onto the ash heap of history. And I will not be penitent and will refuse to share the blame for humanity’s downfall. Gosh I hate them–every single one.
But I do love Our Dear Lady and I’ve been trying to reconcile in my mind how someone of such obvious taste and sense could have ended up with so many of these fat, complacent plants. Were they here before her? Was it that she didn’t want to fuss in the garden and liked purple? Because she does love purple. The traces of it are everywhere around us. Was it that she really liked them? For real and true? That is the most troubling consideration. I try to shove it away and move on to happier thoughts.
Like that perhaps the structure and shape of a Hosta could somehow be considered elegant. I tried this one on for size all yesterday, going in and out of the kitchen door and passing the phalanx of Hostas over and over and over again as I moved things around and bashed my way into what I imagine someday will be order and grace. Did Our Dear Lady think these hulking great circles of drab green were somehow elegant?
In the spirit of charity, of imputing to someone the best possible motives and feelings, I am determined to count the presence of all these Hostas as a small failing of character but nothing more. She Meant Well, I keep saying over and over as I struggle and tear at the roots.
“That would be a great epitaph on a tombstone,” said Matt at luncheon, where we were not talking about Hostas but about something else which has escaped my memory.
She Meant Well
That’s what I’d like on my own tomb stone, assuming I get to have one and am not flung into a shallow dystopic post apocalypse grave, or burned and flung over the new freeway that will never actually be finished in my lifetime. She meant well. She wasn’t trying to be awful. That’s me. Trying to do the right thing with all reasonable good intentions but just coming up quite short of the mark so that everyone is irritated and sad. But hopefully forgiving.
Anyway, I must get up and start digging again because I only got one out and there are what feels like hundreds left to go. If you really love Hostas, you’re welcome to come get one and I will try not to judge you too harshly. I’m sure you mean well, bless your heart.
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