two Japanese guys

I've always liked gardening.  As a little kid I regularly took on landscaping projects that were a lot over my head: pruning the mock orange and the snowball bush, edging the lawn (with scissors because I didn't know how to use the weed whacker).  Once I spent an entire afternoon transplanting every ladybug on our near acre plot of land to the rosebushes, hoping to resolve the aphid infestation.  When I was 11 or so my dad paid me to mow the lawn.  We had lots of lawn.  And by "lawn" I actually mean a "prettyish kind of little wilderness," as Lady Catherine would call it.

 I earned enough mowing to buy a decent bicycle.  Independent transportation opened a world to me I didn't know I was missing!  I took early morning bike rides into the Nevada desert to discover deer, birds, lizards, and miles and miles of sage brush in bloom.  I trespassed on tip-toe through cantaloupe and corn fields, and explored hours worth of ditch banks heavy with such a variety of weeds.  My mom let me go pretty much wherever I wanted as long as I told her where I was going and when she should start to worry.  Such autonomy!

While living in Salt Lake City I was surrounded by more city than is my wont.  Fortunately I had expanded the autonomy of childhood to include a car.  I found open space that seemed limitless in the canyons and hills surrounding the city.  I still needed a garden and began an overzealous container gardening project on the landing outside my apartment.  I had visions of such a bounteous harvest as to impress land owners.  It never came to fruition.  My landing faced full west and the hot Utah sun beat off the red-brick and cement, eventually cooking everything I planted but the most hardy flora.

I went to see The Secret World of Arrietty the other day.  As in other Studio Ghibli films I'm not thrilled with the figure animation, (just can't seem to get into anime...) but the landscapes-- sigh.  They're beautiful!  On Wednesday our hippie-home-school art class was a continuous exclamation of "see how cool Miyazaki and Kazuo are?!" as we looked at landscapes and light from some of the films.  (Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, and My Neighbor Totoro are especially pretty.)  I have a little chagrin regarding our time spent on two living Japanese guys instead of obeying the Art Education Standard of studying the dead French guys.  And now I'm remembering who these hippie kids have been raised by.  They've all seen sufficient Monet/Manet/Chagall/Behr/etc. to keep them well informed on landscape and light.

"a prettyish kind of little wilderness" from Arrietty

 The Arrietty artwork reminds me of the good parts of the old days; my other gardens, my other lives.  I have a new garden here.  The plants willing to grow in this climate are more varied than any I've been in yet.  There are gophers, weeds, slugs and snails, but what are they when the growing season is long, the light good, the water plentiful!