To Elf, who wants to go flying


I will spade your perennial bed
And pack your magic flute,
If you’ll bring me back a rose garden
Preferably bare root

It is March and the fairy violets are opening. The boys are tired of raking leaves and helping their mother weed. They want to express their spring fever in the Topanga tradition and march off with their cardboard boxes and what’s left of their winter sleds to slide down the ice plant and roll in the sour grass. Fairy has soaked sweet pea and nasturtium seeds all night, which she will mix with Lupine and Sunflowers. California poppies, the red and the orange, are mixed with sand to help them spread, and she will go out at sunset with gay abandon and her old shovel into the spaded beds.

Perhaps this afternoon she will dig in some plant food around the Irises. Perhaps she will take the children for a drive down the PCH to the beach to scout for Whales. Or again, she might just sit in the sun.

It is one of those moments of utter contentment that come so rarely to a mother who gardens.

By mid afternoon she finds herself drifting out of her comfy hammock concealed amid the pink blossoms of the Asian plum, and intoxicated by its heavenly perfume, she goes into the kitchen to double boil dark baker’s chocolate and pours it to line the paper cups. She will harden it in the fridge and serve filled to overflowing with fresh berries and cream she whipped herself. This is one way to make sure Elf and their pixies will always remember to come back to her from their Spring flings