We Believe...in Mulch

We hadn't given any thought to where we'd watch THE hockey game, and so it was by chance we ended up in Shaktea, hamming it it up by re-enacting our own versions of "Olympic Moments." Let's face it, we wanted the boys to win, even though it's the girls who really kicked ass on the ice. (I love that the women's team took photos of each other with cigars after the winning game and when the IOC complained the team captain basically told them to chill out.)

The ladies let me peek at the internet when there was less than a minute left and of course, the US scored. I felt sick. I couldn't face the anxiety of the rest of the game. And then we started to hear it--people out of the street cheering--coming out of the stores onto the street to jump up and down with joy. I have never seen anything like it.

People started to get goofy. A man with a big flag cycled down Main Street on the wrong side of the road. I prayed for him. A woman on a scooter circled the block three times, honking, setting off car alarms. I was happy, but I also had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that this is going to affect the political landscape of Canada in a bad way.

Will the lessons learned from Own the Podium program be applied to health care, homelessness, the arts? Money affects people's quality of life and their ability to succeed. It's a no brainer, but cut social programs and arts, education and we all suffer.

I celebrated by shopping for groceries. People were happy and it was contagious. Even those who weren't ringing cow bells and hollering had goofy grins on their faces.

Any excuse to drink beer in the street!

I walked by the mulch lady's house on my way home. She believes in mulch and her whole yard is stacked and mounded with it. There are no weeds. There are so many rounded mounds of mulch I imagine that there are dead men under there. Former husbands maybe. Spring, fall, winter, summer, I walk by the garden and speculate about the mulch lady. I stopped to talk to her and complement her on these flowers which had a very delicate fragrance. "They are scimia," she said with a Slavic accent. "Do you have a garden? Do you want some?" She has light blue eyes, ruddy cheeks and wears layers of worn clothes. Sometimes she wears pink curlers in her hair when she's gardening. I accepted the flower and put it in a plastic bag in my shopping cart.

We listened to the honking cars. "They're happy," I said. "
"Some people are happy," she shrugs.
"I'm relieved it's over."
She shrugs again.

I thanked her and headed to work in my own garden. It was warm enough to work without a coat. "When the forthsythia blooms, you must prune your roses." And so I did. People honked and cheered and set off fireworks. A neighbor bickered with her ex-husband about alimony payments and cut away the dry, thorny branches. I thought of the mulch lady and how she and I were celebrating together, linked by our bonds of proximity, the honeybees that drew nectar from her flowers, the spontaneity of a humble gift. Just another beautiful day.