Bravo, Maddie!! Good on ya!!

--
BetsyB
"madgardener" wrote in message
...
Hello friends, Maddie here. It's been awhile since I posted something. I
see on the earlier posts that thanks to the kindness of friends, there was
quite a little stir caused when my last post was put on the newsgroup
three times. I'm honored! And had no idea those whom I sent the posts to
at the library would be so kind....LOL and of course the flame was
enjoyable to read as well. I knew I was loved, but never knew how much!
Thanks and wish I could hug each and every one of you for being there for
me. You know who you are--

Well, a short update is in order, and here it comes...........those who do
NOT want to read this, close it and move to the next post please....

My life has taken a turn for the incredibly happy and fortunate lately.
Over the last year, I have realized that I was in a terminally deficient
marriage that was verbally abusive and which left me not only despondent,
but had me questioning my reason for even sticking around. Never mind that
I had friends and acquaintances who gave me encouraging words. Literal
words of love and affection from friends whom I've not met only through
the written word, a few phone calls, cards, etc. Those who were close and
could hug me weren't enough either. There was something seriously
lacking.

I was snapped out of my despondency by the incredible realization that
there was someone out there who not only filled the needs of my soul and
heart, but someone who respected me and would love me for everything that
I was and wasn't without question. I stumbled across my true soul mate,
my beshert as the yiddish word is wont to be, the other half. The missing
piece. This man I'd called friend for over four years and who had kept
silent about his own feelings about me, because I had never told him my
anguish and pain through the conversations we had over the phone. He kept
his heart and mouth silent as he realized how much he cared and felt over
the years. He was and still is a gentleman, and only when he asked my
permission when he returned to England to write me a letter last year, did
he reveal his true feelings of love and affection towards me. My own
heart had been shrieking at me for a long time, but when you're as wounded
and tired as I was, one tends to be a bit wary of what seems at first to
be foolishness. And we don't always listen to our hearts........

But ever the optimist, I had held my tongue merely because I didn't want
to cross a line and run off a true friend. Foolish me! Had I but opened
up like I do to EVERYONE ELSE, I'd have had happiness way sooner and
wouldn't be going through all the anguish and craziness I am currently
going thru.

This man, my heart and other half is a gardener. He writes. He loves
music, and adores me. He has been raising his youngest son (of three) now
for 10 almost 11 of the lad's 16 years now. The teenager is phenomenal.
A rare one in this world today, he's centered and quiet, focused and his
wit is razor sharp. We're bonding like super glue......

The dawgs adore him. Smeagol whines and cries at his door (the boy's) to
sleep with him, and ALL the felines think he's awesome. I am happy for
the first time in my life. It's just strange to have a step son who is the
age of my grand daughters! LOL now a bit of gardening updates.......

Today we both went outside into crispy Faerie Holler and did some whacking
and lopping of dead, dying and crispy limbs and shoots. The trumpet vine
has been topped and cut. It will return. The yellow ball buddelia has
been cut to the ground. As has one of the two Crispa spirea. All the
rampant shoots of the Sorbaria (False Spirea) were removed from their
attempts at jumping the concrete along side where we park, and the
Cornelia Cherry tree (twig leaf Dogwood) was given a limb lift, James
doesn't like limbs in his face knocking off his glasses.

I watered containers deeply, the sucking sounds were horrible. The only
stalwarts blooming are the swamp sunflowers. Their perky over sized
Coreopsis like blossoms are everywhere. The hummer strafed me as he
searched in vain for nectar in the Blue Enigma salvia. There are TOMATO'S
on the vines I planted whilst talking on the phone to James when he was
still in England back at the end of Spring. Aunt Ruby's Green and some
Sungold cherry tomato's are fast approaching edibility. I put them in the
front faerie gardens....

Obedient plants are blooming as well, the sedums and succulents are
delirious with this dry sucking heat wave we've been trapped in now for
weeks. Frakartii asters are setting buds, I missed one of the fall
colchicum's blooming, hoping I haven't lost the bulbs in the other pots.
As I watered, butterflies lit and supped minerals out of gratitude. The
bird baths refilled were bone dry. I need to make sugar water for the
hummers.........refill the suet baskets with the never melt stuff, no
seeds for them. funds are tight.

I might be losing Faerie Holler, but if I do, I will keep everyone posted
as to where I wind up and where the next location of Faerie Holler will
be. Things are not good on the financial front. Jobs aren't readily
available for myself, nor James, despite his experiences and maturity. We
prevail and expect for things to come out hopefully good, despite the
looming threat of foreclosure and other things.....divorce is never easy,
despite best intentions and lack of animosity. Nuff said about that, eh?

The faerie's are all hunkered down around here, sulking. Mom's Nature is
culling out the plants I can't take with me. Some beloved things will NOT
be left behind if I lose my home of 12 years. Pruned hard and dug up
after a deep watering and put into nursery pots, I will take them to
Gloria's up in the foothills of Hemlock Holler soon. Some things I will
have to leave behind. I have a mental list of what WILL come no matter
what. I have enough house plants to keep everyone busy in this house for
awhile, and sometimes it's just good to walk outside once the heat has
subsided and listen to the woodpeckers and the squacking of the hummers as
they careen past each other. James has been home with the woman he loves
dearly now for 3 weeks, and I wish with all my heart that he can
experience fall, winter and true spring here. We'll see.........

What I've given him is my love and life for as long as I'm here. And I've
shown him Faerie Holler and given him the magic that it holds each day
he's been here. He's been able to go outside and despite that he has
tenitis, has heard the woodpeckers, cicada's, peepers, and the silence
that offers a peace he'd not known in Bournemouth this past year. He's
wakened up to see Lord Baltimore hibiscus blooming scarlet red skirts just
outside the bedroom window, and watched the antics of the assorted winged
dinosaurs as they squabbled over the suet basket I'd hung beside the Heavy
Metal ornamental grasses. He's seen and smelled the seven foot 4 o'clocks
that hang over the sidewalk out front, and watched me as I labored to
gather seeds of the yellow and not the magenta.....He's been taken down
into the true holler and seen the potential that we both know it has
always had, and if we have the chance to hang onto it, it will be
wondrous......

He's been able to step outside and just feel nature all around him, and he
hears and makes me laugh all the time. Those who meet him, or see us
together claim we appear as if we've been together for decades. We have,
despite the "real time" we know each other very very well.......

The only thing we haven't done yet is garden in the rain....and since it's
so dry, the figs are all covered in ants, so he's only tasted two so
far......I garden now with someone who loves it as much as me, and someone
who works alongside of me easily. We've slipped into each other's
routines and habits like a hand into a glove.

My love and hugs to all of you who hold a special place for me, please
make room for a gentle and kind eyed Englishman who has taken his rightful
place alongside his Maddie........and just off to the side of him, a
mischievous, incredibly blue-eyed young man stands next to his best friend
and partner in jokes and teasings........

I will write as I can.

maddie, up on the very crispy and tinder dry ridge, back in Faerie Holler,
overlooking a hazy English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, sunset
zone 36