How I became Chauncey Gardner

My mother made the remark to me last month, after inquiring about what I'd been up to and hearing that I was tooling around in the garden, that I've become old. The irony of this remark coming from someone 30 years beyond my current age of 48 aside, it struck me that she, of all people, would associate a love of plants and flowers with the blue rinse set. I have fond memories of the large city backyard we enjoyed as children, a space neatly divided into a cement patio, with a wooden picnic table most often seen here in local parks, and then the beautiful lawn surrounded in an L-shape by endless blooms that came one after the other- phlox, roses, lilies, bursts of colours and smells that lasted right through the four or five months that mark the Canadian spring and summer time. The peach tree in the centre of the yard always gave us fruit at the end of the summer, and we could always talk our neighbours into sharing their cherries and tomatoes.

I really don't know why we took so long to get out of the condo life into this house, and perhaps it was the sheer convenience of never having to worry financially or otherwise about repairs and maintenance, not to mention snow shovelling and grass cutting, but I don't think I've ever quite so peaceful as I do now, spending afternoons on the sunny deck in the sunshine with friends or family, reading on the shaded porch in the comfort of our old sofa, which is now waterproof with a mattress bag and covered by a one-size fits all throw. What I have noticed in the last two years is that I like to get my hands into the earth, and am quite pleased to see same beauty that surrounded me in childhood. The other thing that strikes me about living in a house with yards is that each passing of the seasons, and indeed the subtle changes within a single season, are now more obvious to me, and it has allowed me to slow things down mentally. One would expect the extra work involved in keeping a house and garden maintained to hurry the pace, but I am finding the opposite is true- I stop to peek into the flower beds, and the small changes from week to week actually make me take a deeper breath and appreciate the little changes. This week alone, the sage butterfly bush has turned purple, the clematis has bloomed both purple and white flowers (are there two plants intertwined, I wonder?) and my Asiatic lily, choked under some weeds that are now in the compost bags ready for the city collection bins, is now just waiting for a hot day to come out of its leafy shell. The Japanese maple is lush, a stunning mixture of greens under the dark wine red, and my spirea has donned some pinkish blooms, which did not happen last year.

Everywhere around me, I am noticing the efforts of the other Chauncey types in the neighbourhood, and it transformed my dog walks with Whiskey. I linger with my eyes as he relieves himself on the grass, taking in some details that never interested me before, and appreciating the combinations of textures, smells, and colours that are on display. If this is what old age is supposed to be like, I'm in.