Thank you, Oz Diva, for being my friend.
...After all, if we weren't friends, she probably wouldn't take too kindly to me flat out stealing from her. Oz wrote an essay entitled "Green", and when she showed it to me, I said to her, "Hey, oz, this is perfect as a piece Anne might have written for her magazine!"
So, the magazine column in this story is hers, but she's too nice to get me for plagiarism :-D What are friends for?
(I added in the end about Walter, though.)
If anyone is interested, Oz Diva and I are actually co-writing a story together! It's called Joy and Comfort, a series of letters between Anne (played by me) and Marilla (played by Oz) set in the time during Anne's House of Dreams. It's on Archive of Our Own. :)
Green, it's such a simple word but it has so many hues; the English language fails to do it justice. My front garden is a myriad of greens interspersed with pops of colour.
The bright, almost fluorescent, green stalks of the ixia form a border, beautiful en masse even before it bursts into golden flower in a couple of months' time. The blueish grey green of the grevillea, with delicate bright pink flowers dancing in the wind; stamens loaded with nectar to entice the birds and insects. On the ground some native creeper, dark-green leaves this time weaves its way through the undergrowth unchecked, its bright red flowers peeking through. The grass tree in its pot has fine spikes above its slow-growing trunk of dead spines, the occasional dead spike accentuates the blueish green of the rest of the plant. Elsewhere an overgrown native grass reminds me that winter is coming to a close and it might be time to get into the garden for some trimming. This grass is falling over and smothering a nearby plant, looking for all the world like a stationary green porcupine, though not as prickly.
A tiny golden button-grass flower, hopefully the first of many, is nestled above oval leaves covered in a soft fuzz. The Geraldton Wax is just breaking out into vivid white flowers, the ones still waiting are a gorgeous pink on a waxy small-leafed bush. Further over several bushes tumble into and out of each other's space in a delicate if unmannered dance. One is green and spikey, the other blue and soft, no flowers on either at present. In the background a succession of grasses raise their spikes to the sky.
In summer the crimson pink 'fairy fishing rod' flowers nod and dance in the wind, way above the other plants, but for now they merely look like any other native grass. The bright purple native hibiscus's petals furl out in a in an overlapping circle on spindly long branches, they contrast nicely with the far softer small violet flowers of the native mint.
It's too early yet, but I'm looking forward to the silver princess gum tree flowering. The gum nuts burst forth in a profusion of soft spiked pink flowers crowned with yellow dots which hang down from drooping branches.
Somewhere in the massed bushes a spotted pardalote builds its nest, though I've never seen more than a brief flash of its distinctive golden tummy and white spots on black feathers. I only know it by its sweet trilling song.
I feel very honored that he built his nest in my garden, that I have provided a good home for his family.
"Anne, this is lovely," Marilla told her, finally looking up from the page. "You have such talent, dear."
Anne smiled, but it could not be much of a smile, because after that piece, there was a lot of lying on the page.
Of all the bursts of life happening in my garden, none is as dear to me as my sweet boy, Walter. As I write, he is running to his mama, flowers in hand, his happy shouts letting me know he picked them for me in the meadow. They are the last of the Queen Anne's Lace.
Springtime, in all its glory, is preparing to give way to summer, and the golden, hazy twilight compels me to put down my pen and take my darling in to get him settled for bed. We have a routine, he and I. Stories must be told, songs sung, prayers offered, a star or two wished on- I wonder what goes on in his little mind!- and most importantly, the moon smiling down into his nursery window must be spoken to. "Night night," he says sweetly, waving to it. "Mama, the man in the moon wants you to say night night, too." And so I do.
That's terribly sweet, Marilla thought.
But the next part was all about Anne's husband coming home from a night of saving lives on his calls as a doctor, and an entry about the following day, in which Walter added and subtracted, and Anne had decorators in to help her plan an indoor garden in a greenhouse they'd be building over the summer.
"What'll I do, Marilla?" Anne asked, afraid. "I'm being paid and they expected me to commit to a full year of columns…"
"I don't want you to stop writing," Marilla said. "I want you to stop lying."
Anne's shoulders slumped, thinking then that she'd have to stop writing, because her writing was full of lies.
"First off," Marilla said with a sigh, "I don't expect you to use Miss. You were absolutely right when you said you cannot write for a mother's magazine and be unmarried."
Anne nodded.
"But decorating Gilbert's house to look like some sort of...enchanted woodland, that's not a bit true. And having a nursery with a painted mural all over the walls…"
Anne felt terrible for putting Gilbert in a position where he felt he had to lie, too.
"Gilbert isn't your husband, so you ought not say he is. ...oh, I won't make you go back and put it right- that would only make things worse- it won't do for them to know you're an unwed mother! But from now on, just refer to him as Gilbert, you don't need to keep saying my husband."
"All right," Anne sadly agreed.
"Now about Walter reading and adding and all that," she went on.
"...Do I have to tell people he can't?" Anne asked fearfully, because she could not imagine having to divulge that to her readers after all she'd written.
"Don't say anything else about it," Marilla suggested. She thought a moment. "You have a lot of ideas for how to teach, don't you?"
Anne nodded. "I do. I was trying to teach him about patterns…"
"Tell your readers how you did that."
"But I tried lots of ways to teach him...and he never could do it," Anne admitted.
"Don't you see, though? Trying lots of different ways means you have a whole list of ideas! Your readers will benefit from that. ...Why, if Walter hadn't struggled, you wouldn't have had to think of all those."
"That's true," Anne agreed, feeling better. But then she said, "I hate to tell them he didn't understand it, though."
"Tell them it's something you're currently working with him on. Because you are."
Anne nodded.
Marilla looked at her lovingly, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. "You know, Anne, it might not be a bad thing for them to know you're struggling. ...I understand some of these mothers like having an ideal to look up to...but I bet just as many of them would like knowing that other mothers have the same sort of struggles they do."
Anne looked down.
"Perhaps...you could write about helping your child find his own gifts."
Anne smiled. "I should do that."
Marilla wanted Anne to keep writing. "Just write truthfully, dear."
"I will," Anne agreed.
Author's Note:
The Mothering magazine column storyline was fun. I wanted to give Anne her own profession since she can't be a teacher and she could be a writer. ...And of course it was fun to write her having this big secret and the awkwardness of being caught when the magazine lady shows up- that was fun.
But now we are well into the summer and Gilbert has to start his second year of Redmond. And I am excited for what is to come.
Hmmm, summer is a good time to have a nice big helping of Shirbert...