October Blog

Lake Barcroft in winter—Photo by William E. Evans, 2002

Habanero in the fall

We have a small habanero plant—you can’t call it a bush; it’s too small to qualify. It shares a pot with a jalapeno tucked beside a six-foot giant green pepper plant and two industrial-sized tomato plants, it’s not terribly exciting to look at, not brimming with rich green leaves nor dripping fruit like a grape vine. The habanero plant struggles—it’s on its last legs—er—stems.

Along with the dozen or more ornamentals in ceramic vases scattered about the yard all summer, D is determined to grow vegetables, hoping they’ll prosper on our less than sunny site. Hostas love the shade, as do the rhododendrons and the understory redbuds—and the deer who love fresh salad greens. But she’d be the first to tell you sun-loving plants struggle on the property. We once attempted Cana in a spot by the lake that over one long summer managed only a handful of red flowers.

You might recall the story of the rhododendron and the KongKong come-along, a morality tale to be sure. The Resemblance Was Uncanny The rhododendron is doing well, and thanks for asking.

A habanero chili has a flavor unlike other chilis, though few appreciate the accompanying nuclear device going off in one’s head. I’ve tried so-called ghost peppers, if nary a Carolina Reaper, but habaneros stand out as the tastiest chili. If you’re looking for a quick heat fix, there’s always tobacco sauce to go with your Cheerios.

Here in October, our habanero has one plump yellow fruit and another full-sized green one still ripening. I’m hoping D brings it inside for the coming winter, along with the schefflera that spent the summer on the deck. Our habanero is a survivor.

Ornamental Grasses

Fall’s here, and the ornamental grasses are turning straw brown. The grasses outdid themselves this year.

The plan was a plot of ornamental grasses to replace the lawn closest to the water, symbolizing a cattail marsh. Seems the longer I’m away from the low country I grew up in, the more I want reminders. We weren’t certain these grasses would thrive in the scant several hours of sun, but several years later, they continue to come up again each spring. The fountain grass seems to do best. The ribbon grass struggles. The pale green sage is quite content, and the ferns planted in amongst—well of course the ferns thrive. We have one pampas grass plant that grows too tall to sustain its late summer plumes; the first good storm bends the plumes flat.

As I’d hoped, from the downstairs porch the view of the lake looks over the tops of waving grass. That Saturday morning after the passing of Hurricane Ian, its winds were kicking up on the lake, the dark clouds glooming, the high grass reminded me for once the Outer Banks weren’t battered by this storm—Ft. Myers was hammered instead—and Sanibel Island. We’re into hurricane season to be sure. 

We could cut down all the trees and live less stressfully. People do that—and I’m curious, why the hell would they buy in Lake Barcroft if they don’t like our trees? Fairfax County claims they want to preserve the tree canopy throughout the county, but there’s no funding to enforce that, so it’s only aspirational.

Lawn grass, I’ve come to believe, is will not make it on our property. Not a great loss since I don’t play golf. And if I did, I wouldn’t make a fake putting green out of my front lawn like the guy down the street. Layla might miss her favorite spots—and indeed they are ‘spots’.

…

Back when I was designing the house renovation, I must have spent months trying out schemes to capture sunlight. The house is awkwardly oriented, the consequence of a triangular shaped lot largely facing northwest. The best morning light is in the direction of our neighbors’ house, a scant thirty fee away. We like the neighbors well enough, but by damn I wanted sunlight come the winter. So a whole string of clerestory windows run just below the peak of a shed roof, letting light fill the office loft and reflect on the main wall of the living room below.

There’s even a window running the length of the master bath. Barely a foot tall and set high so the neighbors aren’t scandalized, but when the fall leaves thin out, lights aren’t necessary to take a shower.

Hurricane Season

The suddenness of Hurricane Ian shocked the immediate survivors. People in Ft Myers thought it was aiming for Tampa up the road a piece, but like a raging bull it attacked the first land it reached, that laid-back part of Florida instead. Sanibel and Captiva are the kinds of quietude that fill a soul—holding the world at bay by a long bridge and causeway. The bridge that’s been wiped from memory.

The climate scientists surmise superheating the oceans makes these tropical storms into murderous events. All we know for certain is that Ian, like a number of recent storms, went from a middling Category 3 in twenty-four hours to topping out with 155 mph winds when it slammed into Florida.

As irrational as it is to think luck will keep you safe in the path of a hurricane, the way some of those folks suffered is tragic.

October ‘22

It will be twenty years this month since Ryan died. Shocking to realize how much time has passed. The hard edged grief has become an amputated limb. Still an essential limb for walking steady, and I’m always correcting myself to keep from falling. He’d have turned thirty-eight this past March.

The loss hasn’t eased, knowing who he was, more knowing who he was becoming. I did the best I could to carve a memorial—mainly so I didn’t walk off a cliff, though I did enough damage with tequila in the early years. I walk with survivors. With the ones from every manmade catastrophe—even ones who didn’t heed the evacuation warnings before Ian caught them. It’s never reality until it hits. We all did try with as much fortitude as we could muster; we still do. Any who knew Ryan, we try.

Billy Collins says the subject of poetry is death—and by extension living in mortality’s shadow. Depressing thought? It’s well beyond an amusing irony. As if one would ever need such a goad to live a full life. Some evidently do. Collins has been criticized for being a lightweight poet—now that’s ironic.

There isn’t a single anchoring poem—or blog—I could hold up as a final statement for remembering Ryan. The story-poem that closes Love in Winter - Missing Ryan come closest to describing my life in the aftermath. Tropical Depression is about Hurricane Isabel, what came before and what came after—grimly crossing over Albemarle Sound one year after his death, knowing only I needed to keep stumbling forward. October isn’t the best month, though it’s sure damn beautiful.

Yearning

Writing this word, it occurs to me yearning is what’s been driving me—to write—to design buildings, even a few gardens in Ryan’s memory. But the yearning has been with me since a child. Aside from early traumas, reading and yearning to write was how I defined large chunks of childhood.

As a kid, it’s hard to have a yearning and feel there’s no way to reach for it.

Elementary school held nothing to assist with it, I didn’t think. The nuns didn’t help. Riding my bike to school was about all, that and reading. In those days I was self-educating myself with books—or perhaps just escaping.

Later in design studio, working through early images of places I could only describe in 2D plans and sections—lots of sections—and staring at the sketches waiting for mental images to emerge. It wasn’t until grad school when enough came together I could set to work discovering buildings I might be proud of. It’s a slavedriver this yearning to be sure, but it’s been a large part of who I am. So I’ll continue writing and designing buildings. It used to keep me up late; now it might get me up in the morning.