Death and taxes (and wildflowers)

One of the things I keep forgetting about the current iteration of this blog is that it's completely fine if I do the same thing two days in a row, three days in a row, a week in a row. I think I even wrote about this at the beginning of the year—how it's not a Never Done year; it's a year for pure and selfish joy, and as a nod to the selfish part of that, I committed to not writing too much on the blog if it felt like writing was becoming an obligation to readers, and not something that I myself wanted to do. Still, I think I feel an obligation to readers to keep it fresh, to write about different stuff every day, not to say one day that gardening gives me joy, and then the next day, guess what? Gardening gives me joy again. But guess what?  Joy is partly about focus and mastery, and mastery comes from repetition, so guess what? I kept making my garden, and I loved it. Josh and I went to the Park and came home with  some round rocks to use as bed liners. I turned over the soil til it was nice and soft, and then on one side of the bed, I planted Northeast wildflower mix from Fedco, in honor of my mom who never met a field of wildflowers she didn't love. And on the other side of the bed I planted some paper that had Western wildflower seeds embedded in it, that I was given at Lori's memorial. I am hoping the bed becomes a wild burst of wildflower color that embodies my own complex love of the East coast and the West coast, and that come summer, yields bouquets that will perch in corners of the house and remind me of Ann and Lori.

PS: Today is the 5th anniversary of my mom's death. She died on April 15, 2008. Ben Franklin famously said, "Nothing is certain, but death and taxes." It's been enough time now that I can laugh (I imagine along with her) at her final literal joke.