elizabethlevett

Many writers and writing teachers recommend list making as a writing prompt. I often ask students to keep a few pages open in their writing notebooks just for writing lists. This past week, when my adult writing group started a new season, list making was our first prompt. For some mysterious reason, I had already started to create a list of what’s in my garden compost bin. We have the little bin that’s shared among the twelve units on the property, but we also have a larger one that we keep in the backyard. Since we’re the only ones who actively maintain the garden, it’s all ours. What follows then is a partial list of its contents as of Monday.

1. Several small plugs of Italian linaria because, although it’s lovely, it is becoming a bit invasive. So I’m pulling them up, especially the purple ones. They’re just sort of too much at this point. The pink ones are softer, sort of elegant and they don’t grow in such aggressive profusion. The purple ones, though, they have to go. Sorry.

2. About a dozen piles of dead leaves I’ve swept up from the sidewalks, along with some big piles of desiccated moss. I love moss in the winter, but come on. It’s August.

3. The used cobs and husks of corn we scored at the farmers’ market, plus exactly two caterpillars that slept in oblivious torpor while the cobs rested in the frig. Caterpillars whom we have robbed of their ultimate glory and yes, we do feel sorry about this apparent inevitability. We coulda, shoulda, woulda saved the cobs to make soup but life goes on.

4. The body of a large and magnificent dragonfly my girl cat killed. A stain of guilt on the entire family. At least it doesn’t rise to the level of spiritual crisis we experienced when she took out a fledgling junco last year. That was awful. It may be that I’m imagining this, but it seems the juncos have been avoiding us ever since.

5. A bunch of beet greens from those succulent golden beets I love so much in salads. I know, I know. We could have cooked the greens too. We plead guilty. Also, two night’s worth of chard stalks we denuded before simmering their elegant leaves in olive oil. Compost is the only choice here. We score a point or two for adding such richness into the collective. (“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”)

6. Several coffee filters and their cold, cold grounds. Testimony to my addiction. I’ll admit it. May my merits outweigh my transgressions, lord.

7. One jigsaw puzzle minus the three pieces that were already missing when David snagged it from a street library. We couldn’t return it. Since we were not aware of its deficiency until we put it together, there is really no sense in feeling remorseful about it. No reason to pass our frustration on to the next cheapskate who takes in cast off puzzles.

8. The massive tubers of that dahlia I finally gave up on and dug out. Why on earth is the dahlia considered San Francisco’s official flower anyway? I can’t get one to bloom to save my life or, in this case, its life. Sorry, not sorry.

9. An entire batch of granola that I burned, wasting the carefully measured organic oats, pecans, cashews, honey, flax seeds, etc. My neglect. My shame. Bury it all. Bury it deep.