Oh my loves if you could see me now you would be frightened! Ha ha ha! If it wasn’t breaking copyright laws I would put a picture of how I look right now, I look just like Pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoons that was always moving around in a cloud of dirt, filthy from his head to his toes. That’s pretty much me since the beginning of March when I launched this year’s garden season and lawk’a’mussy as old southern ladies used to say, I haven’t quit since I started. And, really, it has saved me.
When I last wrote to you I was on a downward spiral and it had been coming for some time. First creeping in, but steadily picking up speed, and finally, like a runaway train, took me down hard. Since I last wrote my meds were raised, thank God, I really needed them. I had cut back on my own simply because I was afraid with the Covid situation that I might run out but cutting back did not serve me well and my daughter told me never to let that happen again! She would get whatever I needed. The thing is first of all it takes awhile for the higher dose to get working and effective in your system and as it is building up in your system you have side effects, not terrible, and they don’t last but a few weeks, but I went from meds that were too low to meds that are finally getting on target and the transition has been rough. I was on 40 mg of Prozac before Covid. Then I got scared I would run out and cut back to 20 mg so the meds would last longer. That was a bad idea. And the thing is in the state I’ve been in 40 mg isn’t even enough but you have to titrate up slowly so I’m back on 40 mg, headed up to 60 mg which I have done very well on in the past. I am under close supervision as I go through all of this but it’s a bit of a roller coaster ride. Still, just facing it, addressing it, talking to my therapist about it and the P.A. who manages my meds, we’ve got me on the right track.
While all of this has been going on it literally rained for a week. Heavy, night and day. I literally had to give Molly a half dose of Xanax (approved by the vet of course) 3 nights in a row when the storms were really bad at night because first she suddenly sits up (dogs are so amazing, before one drop of rain fell, not a hint of thunder or lightning in the air, she bolted up and reacted!) and shakes “like a leaf.” I mean this poor little girl shakes so hard I can barely hold onto her but I keep my hands on her firmly and kiss her and talk soothingly to her and when she won’t calm down I give her the Xanax. I keep a bag of her treats right next to where we sleep and a little bottle of Xanax (I don’t take it often and neither does she but it’s a Godsend when we need it.) and I cut one of her soft treats in half and smoosh the Xanax in between the layers and she eats it. Still it takes a good half hour for it to kick in and for her to settle down. Some nights I was so tired I was practically in tears. When she is really upset she doesn’t just shake really hard she just, well, kind of goes nuts, like she can’t get control of herself and nothing I can do will comfort her. Finally the Xanax kicks in, she snuggles back into me, I snuggle her and kiss her, and we both go back to sleep.
The thing is that this week of heavy rains just about did both of us in. Molly has her issues and I have mine. When you are depressed and anxious and sad and edgy, heavy, unrelenting rain, and dark days non-stop, do NOT help your mood. And the new meds hadn’t kicked in, and I was just hanging on by a slim thread — BUT THEN — over the weekend THE SUN CAME OUT! My poor garden looked so sodden all week I couldn’t work out there (And gardening is the thing that really keeps me going emotionally. Fresh air, sunshine, physical labor, all work wonders.) but after a day of sunshine I woke up the next morning to the sun shining too and my beloved poppies that had been literally laid FLAT all week were up and blooming like mad. That’s when I took the picture at the top of this post. That was yesterday morning. And OH, gracious! when I saw my poppies looking like that my heart lifted, I smiled, I laughed, and I felt just a huge sigh of relief, and release, and a letting go. My body relaxed for the first time in nearly 2 weeks.
And then I went around front to the huge and ever growing cottage garden and things are just so amazing I am, as my Canadian friends would say, GOBSMACKED just looking at it. I feel shy to say this but it’s so glorious I can’t believe I did it! The thing is — and we all know this about ourselves — there are things we would like to be good at and never will be, but there are things that, if we’re honest, we know we ARE good at, and the garden is one of the things I am very good at in a kind of whimsical, over the top, enchanted, magical garden sort of way. Let me show you a couple of pictures…
This first picture is nearly exactly 1 year ago when I first started gardening in pots after several years of not gardening because the house burned down and then the hurricane hit. Always a big gardener I shyly and tentatively began…
This next picture is a small part of this garden and I couldn’t find one with the above angle but you will get the feeling…
I am constantly uploading lots of pictures to Instagram of the garden so if you could follow me there you would be able to see the whole cottage garden as it unfolds, and all of the magical poppies that open more and more by the scores everyday. I planted them in 6 half barrels just under my kitchen window out back and every day they delight me and when Molly and I go out as she runs about the yard I do the morning “Poppy Walk” and take pictures. I have taken so many there are too many to try to put here but really, go look at Instagram! I just posted 10 new poppy pictures on Instagram yesterday!
Another thing that happened — and I hate to even mention this, I am so ashamed — I have spent months searching for very inexpensive plants to put in the garden, I am mainly planting from seed but filling in with inexpensive perennials here and there + bulbs I’m about to plant, BUT what happened was a whole lot of plants arrived about the same time when I was literally in the depths of despair and barely functioning. I kept them watered, in my garage potting shed, and looked after them the best I could but due to my mental state, and then a week of rain when I couldn’t get outside, some of them started to die. I was more horrified than I can tell you. Today Molly and I went out to our little potting area and I literally spent from noon to 8:oo tonight and potted up every single thing I hadn’t yet planted. It was a huge undertaking. I sadly threw away the dead ones, but all the rest are planted in dirt, watered, and out on my deck where they will get sunlight and fresh air. They will really start growing now and developing good root systems and little by little I will get them planted out into the garden. I’ve learned a lot from my folly this year. And a lot of it, I’m sorry to say, came from a very bipolary time. (When you are going through the madness of a bipolar manic time you tend to think “If a little is good, a LOT is better,” Well, we all know that isn’t so and it didn’t serve me well.) I am getting back on track, I am on a raised dose of meds which is helping, and I am not going to buy anything else for the garden. I have bulbs and seeds here to plant but then that is that. I have a lot of planting and work to do in the back but I don’t need to buy anything else to do that.
So what did I do during the week of non-stop rain? I have worked a lot on Maisie’s Society 6 shop and we are close to opening. It’s a lot of work to open a shop and with nearly 30 images to upload, and write information about, and more, it just takes time, but I’m really rather amazed how much I did with that. And I have been working on the summer edition of “Days At Dragonfly Cottage.” I am feeling so proud of both of these ventures even if it takes longer than I would like them to take I am slowly moving toward my goals.
It seems there are a thousand things to do every day and some days my best is curling up in the recliner with my Molly and reading a little and taking a nap. But other days I work hard all day long and get a lot done. Maybe that’s how a bipolary person rolls. Maybe it’s just how I roll, but here we are and on we go.
In closing I want to say something, something that I feel really badly about. I take great pride in answering every comment individually as they come because I appreciate them so much and they mean so much to me but after the last post, when I was having such a very hard time, worse, really, than I let on, I received quite a number of comments and they were some of the most beautiful, touching comments I have ever received and if you were one of those people who took time to comment I cannot thank you enough. I hope you will forgive me for not answering each of you personally — I put a few notes along the way thanking you for your dear comments — but I know it wasn’t enough and you deserved more, but know this … those of you who care enough to take time to leave comments have helped me more than you will ever know, and I love you deeply and dearly. On days when I honest to God didn’t know if I could hold on, it was your comments that gave me something to hold onto. I think people don’t realize how much the comments mean. I wait anxiously after I put a post up, always hoping it was okay, hoping someone will read the post, that it will mean something to them and they will comment. Those of you who did in the last week truly saved me and there is no way I can thank you enough. I will do better in answering each of you going forward, as best I can, which will be most of the time. If I am going through a really bad period which really doesn’t happen often anymore, I hope you will understand.
Oh my dear readers, if you had any idea how much you mean to me… Well, just know that you do. I love you and love you, forever.
Be well and take tender care during these difficult days. Until next time…
You are a blessing to me, Maitri. I gain strength from your posts. I do not idolize you, please don’t think that, but I admire so many things about you. I love the way you care for Molly and your pets and your flowers. God bless you and bring you peace and joy. Love in Christ, Memarge:)
Thank you so much dear Marge, they are my world here, my little ones, and the garden and Maisie and all of it, and you, dear readers and friends, are such an important part of my life. You just don’t know. I hope all is well in your world Marge. Blessings and Love to you…
Maitri
our gardens, a salvation, during Covid or any time, and writing too. between gardening and writing poems/stories, and cooking delish meals (and hugging Tom) all is well down here in Tallahassee land, despite…the chaotic crazy twilight zone of this “era.” So glad to see that the sun came out, both metaphorically and actually, and that you are back in your beloved garden with the poppies. I have one pot of poppies, and every day i go out and feast my eyes on the one or two blooms that appear, so brilliantly colored, and cheerful. so, from my garden to yours, I send magical seeds of rejuvenation xo ka
Ah Katya, my darling friend, gardening is a salvation indeed. I love that we can share our gardens. I think of you working in yours when I am working in mine. And yes, the poppies are such a delight but I noticed this morning that they are starting to fade, not a lot of little nodding heads about to open into flowers but they are all starting to go to seed. I will collect all the seed heads when they are finished and save them and then pull out the withered green stalks for the compost pile and plant something else there. I love to have a little garden to look down on from my kitchen window!
And thank you honey, rejuvenation is what is needed right now and it can be found in the garden. The only thing is it is supposed to start raining by tomorrow, maybe by this afternoon and literally rain all week and through thr weekend. Oy! Well the garden will love the rain even if I can’t get out to work in it!
Love you honey,
M. xoxox