Rorschach Gardens II: OCG

My mom and I both suffer from OCG—Optimistic Cosmic Gardening. It’s a rare syndrome, easily identified by the hoarding and display of perennial flowers and certain categories of yard art.

My mom has a garden that takes up most of her front yard on one side of the porch, with clusters of perennials in every color, interspersed with an astounding collection of fairy sculptures. She has so many fairies, that she’s grouping them in “scenes” now—one reading to another, several with musical instruments grouped into a fairy band, and a small village of crystal-ball fairies. And the entire garden lights up at night with solid, twinkling, or color-changing solar lights, which gives it a spooky resemblance to Mr. C’s (sans plastic grapes; see post 12/11/08). In the advanced stages of OCG, she’ll have elaborate fairy dioramas propped up against the siding and she’ll start charging admission for the “tour.”

Mom has another garden on the other side of her front porch. This “space” garden, as she calls it, has red perennials and two unusual sculptures her good friend Sue bought her at a sidewalk art fair: an obelisk of old red glass dishes and milk glass vases glued together, and a huge, red, concrete ball. My son dug the ball into the ground, so it looks like a fallen meteor. This garden makes the older neighborhood women say, “Hmmm. Isn’t that…interesting.”

Mom’s back yard is fenced, and the yard & fence are decorated with every kind of star imaginable: metal sculpture, twinkling/flashing/color-changing solar stars, enameled, hung, strung, propped or posted.

In the Rorschach interpretation of gardens, Mom’s gardens make perfect sense. Hers has been a life of hard work, sacrifice, and always, always, caring for others. So it isn’t surprising that now, when she can finally do what SHE wants, she’s nesting among wishful stars, a rainbow of flowers, and the whimsy of fairies (makes my mom sound like a Care Bear, I know). And practical woman that she is, the gardens are also a convenient mapping tool when they’re all lit up at night and visible from space.

I’m in the early stages of OCG. My gardens are an unkempt, wild mix of mostly blue, purple, or red perennials, with iconic statuary tucked into every available space (see post 9/28/08). And scattered in the trees and gardens are blue & green solar orbs. At night they float above the ground with a soft glow, my own private galaxy. In the Rorschach analysis, maybe the flowers (and weeds) keep me grounded, while the statuary and orbs remind me there’s more out there. There’s mystery, magic, things unexplained and unexplainable. Or maybe they remind me that without the grounding of dirt & rooted things, I’d drift off into the ether.

Yesterday, Mom cooked fried chicken, and Ray, Mom and I had a lovely dinner followed by martinis and wine—temporary relief from our collective symptoms—around the new patio table, oohing and ahhing over the flowers, the lawn, the peacocks calling from the trees. It occurred to me, listening to the conversation, that OCG is most common in people who garden as a sign of eternal hope. We tend to be caretakers—planting, mulching, mowing or pruning in FAITH that what we create today will one day enrich lives or, maybe, rarify the planet just a little.

I know I shouldn’t wish maladies on my children, but I want my kids to have this optimism, too, to be grounded but always aware of the infinite puzzle of the Universe. I want them to believe that what they plant today will still be growing & spreading, like South Dakota Creeping Jenny, generations from now.

And I don’t think I’ll need to browbeat the kids with these lessons. Judging from my yard and Mom’s, OCG is genetic.