An Acto of Hope in Pursuit of Joy!
Column by Tess Coody-Anders
Amid the dim drib-drabbery of February, full of bad weather and worse news, I’ve received a gentle reminder that winter is not forever. Spring always comes. It’s only a matter of perspective and time.
This little message from the Universe arrived in the most analog of ways: via a catalogue, rolled up and dropped in a mailbox, delivered by a postman on foot. The annual Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalogue, its moody, lush cover featuring chocolate cherry sunflowers in full bloom, felt like a nudge. Inside, the catalogue is a riot of color and tempting close-ups of purple carrots and tomato litchi pies, glass-gem corn and velvety cockscomb. Its intended recipient was Bill Bender, from whom we purchased a sunny yellow house on South Camp Street in October.
For both Bill and for me, it was more than a real estate transaction; it was about pursuing joy. Bill had plans to open a retreat center in Arkansas, and I had found the perfect spot for my own passion project – a bookstore in downtown Seguin. Of course, creating the space for joy often means taking risks, and it’s easier to choose the devil you know than the one you don’t. There were a thousand reasons not to take that leap.
Gently and by example, Bill shared his belief that living a life of rich experiences requires us to shift our misplaced urgency from the crises of today to tomorrow’s promises. Two weeks after moving to his idyllic new home and venture, Bill passed away unexpectedly. The shock of his loss was difficult to process, but so was the Shakespearean tragedy of it all. He manifested his dream, and held it lightly but for a moment.
After that, the little yellow house took on a different kind of import for me. Since starting this project, there have been moments of deep doubt, edging on panic. Lying awake in that blue hour when there is only quiet and nothing to distract, I do my best work at second-guessing myself. A bookstore, really? Yet, each time we peel away a layer of sheetrock to uncover original beadboard or a layer of vintage wallpaper, I think of Bill. We will always, all of us, be passing through, sharing the rock on which we build our house with those who came before us and those who will come after us. The tragedy is not in having the dream cut short; it’s in never dreaming at all.
I see Bill’s exhortation to live from our hearts in everything, but most assuredly in the flower and herb gardens just inside the white picket fence. Among them are thick beds of lavender. While I have never been able to keep even a single lavender plant alive, Bill’s continues to thrive, exuberant even in early February. We found a little bundle, tied up in red string, at the house a few weeks ago. According to the catalogue, it’s heirloom Origano lavender, and well suited to our warm climate. The bundle continues to make its way from dusty room to dusty room, intact and unbothered by all the renovations, a totem of the past and a connection to the future.
Heirlooms are something of value we pass on from one generation to the next. Be they seeds or dreams, they have to be planted to flower. Maybe they only survive a season, or maybe they persist well beyond our time in the garden, to the surprise and delight of a future gardener. Which is precisely why the addressee on the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalogue reads to “Bill Bender, or Current Resident.” •