San Francisco, California
In a shady patch of garden where the light and airy mint and scraggly bush rose play, I wanted something to contrast their similar leaf shapes and color. I thought this variegated tree ivy (Fatshedera variegata) would do the trick. I was right about the contrast, but the ivy has never thrived. Not enough water in the summer, perhaps, but the problem may more directly lie with some night creature that loves to eat its leaves. The ivy’s holes have grown significantly since I took this picture.
This climate has a lot of garden pests, I’m told, but I have yet to see them. Sometimes in the rainy season, we’ll wake up to gooey slug trails shimmering on our carpet, a sight that freaked me out when I first moved in. To get there, the slugs have to cross the garden, climb down the brick steps and then up again to the lower deck, squeeze beneath the door and crawl across the sitting room. Why do they go to that much trouble? And, a better question, where are they now?!?
We all factor certain hidden dangers into our daily lives, calculating the risks and knowing the protocols for mitigation. Living in the Bay Area has schooled me in the threat of earthquakes and taught me what to do. But even if the house shakes a little from time to time, I take my cue from everybody else that lives here - pretend the danger isn’t really there. We trust we’ll beat the odds. I’m hoping some day to file away this coronavirus in a similar way - when will I accept it as a risk to live with but not fear? When will I stop looking up and down the street expecting to see it manifest? Recently, a local headline read, “What to do if there’s an earthquake while you’re sheltered in place.” I should have read the article, but I could not quite bear the thought. Now, today, I learned that we have had only 40% of our average rain this year, which means that the drought and fires could come sooner and be worse than ever. What do you do, how do you cope when several existential threats collide? Let them go, I guess - enjoy the mint, the rose, the ivy, and be grateful for the day.