Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow by Tara Austen Weaver

Author:Tara Austen Weaver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2015-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

12

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THE YIELD OF A BERRY PATCH

I HADN’T INVITED FRIENDS to the garden. Not really. Knox and Kim had taken tours, given feedback, and been on their way. I hadn’t invited anyone over just to hang out. This was not surprising. I’d spent a lifetime not inviting people over.

I had learned early, from neighborhood children, that my house was weird. We had no television, no candy, no cool toys. None of the neighborhood kids wanted to come to our house to play. They told me so.

Our house was filled with Asian carpets and calligraphy done by Buddhist masters. There were no comfortable chairs, no places to lounge. I longed for a house with wall-to-wall carpeting and a boring beige sofa set. Boring was safe.

There was usually no mom at our house—and when she was there, she was a liability. My mother was more likely to dole out carob-studded trail mix and unsweetened apple juice than cookies or lemonade. She might try to give you tofu or seaweed. Her eccentricities made us stick out. Her refusal to fit in became a burden for which I did not have her strength.

As I got older things shifted, never for the better. The occasional high school friend who came to visit widened their eyes at tatami-mat floors and the Asian art that decorated the home my mother had created. “What is that smell?” they whispered, picking up the ancient, unfamiliar scent of indigo dye. The truly unlucky asked about the bamboo whisks lined up on the kitchen windowsill.

“They’re used to make ceremonial green tea,” my mother explained, seeming delighted to have been asked. “Would you like some?”

I kicked my friend under the table, gestured behind my mother’s back—I shook my head. “It’s really bitter,” I warned.

My mother brushed away my concerns. “It’s not so bitter.”

Too often the friend said yes, and my mother selected a handmade bowl and carefully measured out powdered green tea using a tiny bamboo scoop. Tea ceremony is an agonizingly slow process, and I cringed through every deliberate moment. My mother whisked the powder into warm water until it was a frothy mixture of brilliant green that tasted deeply of grass. Each friend who fell into this trap took a single sip before coughing and sputtering, taken aback by a concoction so strongly flavored it’s meant to be served with tooth-aching sweets for balance. My mother never bothered with that part.

Couldn’t she see she was only making things worse?

I wanted a mother who asked about school or drama club or the cross-country team—who showed genuine interest in her daughter’s life and this new friend. Why couldn’t she put me first?

Some friends seemed taken by the exoticism of a visit to my house—so very different from their own homes. They were curious about a mother who did not serve on the PTA or work as a real estate agent or dental hygienist. My mother had been far more adventurous with her life than most women of her generation.

But I didn’t want to be a curio.

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