I thought about it, after I decided yesterday at work to do something I never do- which was to find a ladder and sit down for a moment. The ladders at the 666BBHS are wide, sturdy things... just right for me.
I sat down in the middle of the garden center because it was cold and had started raining; because they had closed the garden gate, sent the cashier inside, and I had only 10 minutes left on my shift; because there was not one customer out there and the only sound was the rain falling. I sat down next to a clump of Clematis, two of which were blooming their hearts out in this chilly October weather. I sat down because it's my garden center, and they've been my plants... my companions... my charges for months now.
I sat down to say goodbye.
The corporate changes are ramping up... they are in full gear. We've got mum's and pumpkins and pansies and we've got a world of perennials and shrubs that never got chosen. Time to pretty them up, get them out, clean the floors, upturn the tables and call it CHRISTMAS! It's already Christmas inside. Has been for two weeks. Big blow-up witches are flirting uncommonly close to big blow-up Santa Claus'.
..............
But, out in the garden center it's getting quiet. Yesterday I went out early morning and a talkative cashier had something to tell me. I couldn't focus because there was a strange bird call coming from somewhere over my head. I finally found him... a baby bird calling and calling, I imagine for his parents. Eventually he had the nerve to fly off.
The plants are beginning to tire. The 666BBHS has taken so long to mark them down that some are just giving up. The shrubs have begun to turn in color and I take as many of them as I can, mark them down and hope they get a good home.
Sitting there on that ladder was just.... bittersweet. For the first time I had held sway over their future... and I suppose I've done okay, given the economy. I also imagine that in the best economy, a bit of melancholy would overcome me. Something, someone will always be left.
I got word today that in three weeks time we will be down to 75% off, so my old friends will for the most part be going home.
But sitting there in the quiet of the dripping rain, with my first year as a 'Specialist' behind me~ thinking about the spirit of the plants and not the nature of my job was sad and sweet.
I took an incredible Clematis blossom into my hand and said to no one in particular, 'Mitakuye Oyasin'...
We are all related.