WHERE STAR TREK WENT

As a young mother, dealing with the demands of a toddler and an infant while their father worked full-time and also went to college, I found so much comfort and pleasure in the stories of the original Star Trek series.  When I had to defend my appreciation for these stories, I simply found the words:  “They explore the human condition.”  Many people looked at the strange aliens and the strange alien environments and the strange alien situations, and did not realize that there were many metaphors for the way that we as humans interact with each other.  Everything was explored in those stories, from religion to lifestyles to gender attitudes, but that exploration was done in a way that taught, for those who would learn.  And one of the most interesting aspects of all the explorations, for me, was Spock’s logic, particularly as he was half-Vulcan and half-human, and therefore had the dubious pleasure of having human emotions and Vulcan requirement for logic.    And over and over, it seemed to me that human emotions were shown to be both blessing and curse and that pure logic was shown to be blessing and curse as well.  As Mr. Spock said many times, “Fascinating.”

 

And here is something that Leonard Nimoy, the wonderful human who gave Mr. Spock a type of reality, said:  “A life is like a garden.  Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.”

TOO MANY POTS

There is a tendency I have to try to grow too many things in pots.  First there are the pots of plants such as crinum that are simply too vigorous to find a place in the garden beds, and the pots help to restrain them.  Then there are the plants which are not winter-hardy in our area:  ixoras and a lemon tree, and wax begonias and pelargoniums, all of which grow happily outside in all but the coldest winter months.   Then there are the agapanthus, plural, which I have found do so much better with winter shelter in our unheated garden room.  And the many (too many) amaryllis for which we do not yet have garden bed space.  Finally there are the small pots of various plants that were looking poorly and were either lifted and potted and kept where they could get special attention, or the bits and pieces that have remained when plants were trimmed back and which were potted because I could not bear to simply discard what would be excellent future plants.

 

Every year I promise myself, and my mate, that there will be fewer pots to winter over, to either move into what is a fairly small garden room or to pull up close to the house on the patio and cover for protection.  That is the promise I make, but the reality is that there seem to be more, not fewer, pots, and it gets more and more exhausting to move plants around, to water and feed the inside pots and to cover and uncover the outside pots when our winter temperatures go down and up and down again.

Ah, but my resolve seems to be strengthening.  I have managed to find homes for four of the five pots of butterfly amaryllis, and already I am looking squinty-eyed at the many small pots of plants, planning to squeeze them in amongst the spring bulbs of daffodils and tulips and crocus.  There’s got to be some more room out there somewhere!