Wisteria

It’s a happy kind of tired

After working in your yard,

Trimming things and sprucing up,

You forget you’re working hard,

But when you stop you find out,

You have muscles you forgot,

Will we do it again tomorrow?

I’m thinking maybe not!

                                             

While enjoying a weekend afternoon planting some flowers in hanging baskets, I began to take note of the various bushes we have planted over the years.  There are Rose of Sharon I transplanted from my parents’ yard when we moved into our house, some Forsythia, Azalea, Lilac, and Rhododendron. There is also a Wisteria.

I bought the Wisteria the summer after my mother passed away. She had one in the side yard that had the most beautiful clusters of light purple flowers on it. It was also an aggressive grower and took over the area where it was planted.  Mine is growing on a trellis against the deck and I keep it trimmed so that it’s a bit more like an out of control small leafy tree, but it gives us a bit of privacy when on the deck and some shade in the yard. If we have too many days in a row of rain and hot temperatures it takes over the deck and I fill a large yard bag with clippings when trimming it back to its useful form.  We had to tie the trellis it grows on to the deck rail because when the wind blows too strongly from the North it falls over from being top heavy, and recently my husband noticed that its weight is pulling the deck rail apart.  I’m not sure what we’re going to do about that! We have needed to right it several times over the years.  We cut it back severely in the Fall so the weight of ice and snow won’t further damage anything. It has never had flowers, as I didn’t realize when I purchased it that it can take 20 years to mature before blooming. Oh well, I have a few more years to wait, and at least it’s useful in the meantime.

We recently drove past the house where I grew up, and I noticed the Wisteria is gone, but mostly the yard and house look the same.  I regret that I forgot to look and see if the red rose that grew under my parents’ bedroom window is still there. I’ll have to drive by the house the next time I’m in my hometown. It’s funny the things you remember when you go back to the neighborhood where you grew up. There is a house at the other end of the block on the corner that always had and still has a wooden stockade type fence around the back yard. Every time I walked past that house, there was a large dog that barked and growled as I walked past, the whole length of the fence. It terrified me every time, but that’s the side of the street that had a sidewalk so I had to walk there.  I was always afraid the dog would somehow escape and attack me.  I don’t know what type of dog it was, and don’t remember the name of the family who lived there; I just remember the terrified feeling it gave me to walk along that fence.  As we cruised slowly down the street I mentally noted who lived in the houses—my oldest brother’s friend Richie in that one, my cousins in another, my mother’s friend in the one with the big porch, and the cranky old man who confiscated our kickball in the house next door to us.  Across the street lived the family who had a paving business and then sold the house to younger relatives who were on the rescue squad which was diagonally across the street from us and had 2 little girls.  The rescue squad building was a polling place during elections, and in later years was the site for a nutritional lunch program for seniors.  I still remember the sound the tires on the ambulance made on the crushed stone driveway when they were heading out on a call, but I don’t remember hearing the siren.

It is funny the things that we remember, and the things that jog our memory.  For me it was the Wisteria that took me on a trip down memory lane; tomorrow it could be something as mundane as a cup of water. You just never know.