Hydrangea

The house in Michigan is nearly cleaned out. The basement, emptied, is being painted. White walls and a gray floor. It looks spacious and for the first time in my life it is a lovely space for laundry. No more creepiness while walking to the washer and dryer or carrying clothes up and down the stairs. Boxes of our winter clothes are stacked in one room, waiting for our move. I find it comforting to have things here organized.

Organization gives me the space to consider what we leave behind in homes when we leave and what we take with us. Here in Michigan, I have missed the deep tub of the Maryland house where I spent many hours bathing, reading, thinking. I would turn the hot water on with my toes when it became tepid and sit some more. There is no tub here for proper baths. This is a requirement of our next home. While I love the tub and many features of our Maryland home, there is only one object I regret leaving.

In our Maryland home, many beloved animal companions passed on: HD, Homer, Shelby, Liza. Each worthy of many stories. We never buried any of our animals in the garden of that home. We keep all of them, cremated, in decorative boxes. Boxes that are packed and ready to moved with us to our next home. While on many occasions, the beloved declared that she would live in that house until she died, the neighbors, the town mayor with the silent consent of the council, conspired to force us from our home. So while our memories will always be of Shelby and Homer cavorting in the back yard, they will come with us, in our minds, and in our boxes. We hold close what we do not want to lose. We refuse to let houses have more of us than they deserve. Only in retrospect do I understand the wisdom of these decisions.

Yet the house, the yard, retains one thing that I cannot move. One thing I must leave in Maryland. It fills me with regret. A hydrangea. A gift from a dear friend when I was accepted into the MFA at the University of Maryland. When it arrived, it was in a small pot. We planted it in the back yard where it grew and grew. There are many hydrangea in the yard, but this one always had the most flowers. In August, it would droop from the weight of its blooms. I love this plant. I means everything to me. A beacon of friendship, a promise of poetry with a central role in my life, an object of beauty that seems like it will bloom forever and thrive. This plant always thrived. Wet or dry, sunny or overcast, hot and humid, cool and chilly, this hydrangea thrived. If only we all could be like this plant: rooted, growing, blooming.

Leaving this hydrangea fills me with sadness. If I could, I would dig it up, bring it with me. Carry it with me like the other things we brought to Michigan: clothes, beloved books, a pile of stuff dog toys. I would like a living talisman to carry with me reminding me of friendship, love, poetry, but I had to leave it behind. This hydrangea is the one thing I regret leaving in Maryland.

I hope that some other plant will grow and blossom in my life, though we will never bury our animals in the yard of a place we call home. Home is too fragile, too tentative, too subject to the vagaries of the world. Too many people lose their homes to bigots and bullies, to changes in the nation, to a rise of nationalism, to catastrophic climate events, to conditions beyond their control. Home is something we have for a moment, something we can lose in the blink of an eye. Still, I hope for a plant that says home. I hope for a space where I can re-remember, relearn, reencounter friendship, poetry, beauty, and love again.