Brian (the husband) weed-whacked my poppies and several other perennials on the side of the house.  True it wasn't a well established bed, and certainly is less so now. I may have, possibly, called him at work screaming and yelling, and then slipped into violent tears.  Prompting him later to say that he had been concerned that I might actually be losing my mind.  But gardening is partly dreaming of the future.  I planted these from seed three years ago.  The first year I saw nothing.  The second I saw some plants but nothing bloomed (save for one hollyhock, the only hollyhock out of a whole packet of seeds.)  So this year, was going to be THE ONE, the year they bloomed. But then he mindlessly came along and whacked them down to their ankles! Yes, yes, yes, only plants, but I spent three years dreaming into them. And now my hopes for them must be pinned on next year.
    At least by now he knows to stay away from my other beds.  My salmon poppy tucked beside the stone steps is finally safe. He got that one two years running, which is why I can't believe that he so unwittingly massacred these.  By now he should know, leave the fuzzy leaved things that look like weeds alone.  He kept saying, but there weren't any flowers.  Yes, and now there wont be.
    Bygones.  I do have other plants. That is what May is for in my mind, planting.  And Brian can't complain about my buying ones to replace those he chopped.

     The good news of late is that the boy, about to turn 14, has finally decided to take up bike riding.  I really never thought I would see the day when he would ride down the street.  And now we all get to go on family bike rides together.
    The bad news of late, is my writing progress.  There has been none.  I am reading A Dash of Style about punctuation, and that is going well.  Though I am not attempting to employ any of it yet, it makes sense to me.  But the rest of the grammar world is still a foreign language which leaves me feeling confused and stupid. I feel like there is no point in working on my draft to try and make it better when I lack the basic grammatical competence necessary to do so.  So I don't know.  In a week or two I will be done with planting.  And I will have to force myself to sit in a chair, and keep trying different ways to learn.  I hate feeling this stuck.  I hate feeling this unable to communicate.  I hate second guessing every sentence I write, to anyone about anything. But that is where I am.
    It will be okay that I was stuck here for a while, as long as I find my way through.  I could and should end up in a better place because of it.  But I am scared.  Scared that I can't learn, and that I will become so frustrated and full of doubt that I wont be able to write at all.  And because I am afraid of that happening, it's hard to push myself forward to a time when I could reach that conclusion.  I'm going to have to keep a pep talk in my pocket all June. I'm not the sort to keep trying when I fail.  I am the sort to slink quietly away.  But I am still dreaming, in gardening and in writing. Dreaming of the future, of how it could be.  Those poppies wont bloom this year, like me they've been whacked down to their ankles.  But we are all still alive, and we have woven within us a code that wants us to bloom. Something that wants us to strive, to go on, to reach forward to a time of blooming. And no matter how many years it takes those poppies on the side of the house, or me, of trying, of watering, and weeding, being fertilized, then wilting in the hot sun, then rebounding to be chewed on by insects, no matter how many times we get weed-whacked, and go dormant then start to grow again, I am choosing to believe it is in all of our destinies (eventually) to bloom.

(there, pep talk number two of the thirty thousand I will need.)

(oh and I am deleting any comments left in other languages, as I have no idea what they might be saying.) (oh, unless that other language is English grammar speak.)