The Ditch Lily

I was a poor kid. The obvious, everyone-knows-it poor. We didn't have plumbing, we lived in a little house that would have been small for four but was excruciating for seven. Nothing was ever new. I had a great mom, a great family, I was never hungry. If possible, I guess I grew out of being poor.

As an adult, there's always been enough. Sometimes the enough has included robbing Peter to pay Paul, putting more on a credit card that was comfortable, or writing a check that wasn't really good on the day I wrote it. But we could pay our bills, buy food, drive decent cars, and face down minor catastrophes.

But, you know, it's always there. If you're like me, you never quite get over resenting it. (This is the point where I roll my eyes and suggest I get over myself, but it's still there.) Regardless of that, though, I cherish being comfortable, donating, not worrying about having more month than money.

In a segue that might become obvious if I can do this right, my mother never bought flowers or plants or trees. She could grow anything, though, so every "start" she got from anyone took off. Every geranium my grandmother brought wrapped in a wet paper towel, bloomed. The petunias I buy as annuals were perennials in Mom's yard. She got the starts from Marguerite Keim, planted them around the stump of an old plum tree, and never had to worry about them again. The lilac bushes, three colors of them, bloomed prettily every spring.

She liked Jacob's Ladder and ditch lilies, so she gathered them from the roadside and planted pieces of them around another tree stump. They grew, blessed by her benign neglect, with cherry tomato plants coming up among them. Ground covers of wild violets and lily of the valley and myrtle grew under the shrubs, so there was always color to be found.

I can't ask her, but I think she wanted her flowers that way. When she bought garden seeds, she bought zinnias and marigolds, too--a package of each. But never the ones already started or the ones in big pots by themselves. Her big pots were Maxwell House coffee cans.

Mom had the most beautiful flowers, but they would never have been at home in a greenhouse. Their bouquets were pretty, but they were in Mason jars and only lasted a few days on the kitchen table. She never knew ditch lilies were invasive and not wanted by more discriminating gardeners than herself. She knew they were pretty and she could afford them and they didn't grow anywhere she didn't want them to.

The political climate is hard for people like me. The passage of the president's bill took the shine off a July 4 that was already battered by that climate. Like the flag, Denali, the Gulf of Mexico, and those ships whose names he didn't like, I feel as if the country I love is being taken away piece by piece by a man who doesn't even like it, much less respect it. This administration doesn't like things like rose gardens or traditions or poor people. They don't like national parks or public education. They aren't at all worried about rural hospitals or the people who need them. They like rich white guys who can pay five million dollars for citizenship or be flown in specially from countries they like.

When I think of the kid I was, I guess I was a ditch lily, too, and I was so happy as an adult to graduate to being the flowers and plants that come in divided six-packs from the greenhouse. But they don't grow well for me, any more than starts from my mother-in-law or ones I carefully picked from along the Nickel Plate Trail when I walked it. I may have thought I would do better when I spent more money, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. Sometimes the value has nothing to do with the cost.

I'm still a ditch lily.

I know writing about politics isn't a great thing to do on this blog, but sometimes I need to. Because although voices like mine aren't as great in number in our state as those on the other side, they still deserve to be heard. Just as Mom's free flowers were as pretty and important to her as greenhouse plants and florists' works of art, the people who are ditch lilies and live vicariously from check to check are just as important (and pretty) as the billionaires whose pockets are being so carefully lined.

Have a great week, whether you're a ditch lily or a hothouse orchid. Be nice to somebody.