humble. And no one’s ever celebrated grass before.”
“Walt Whitman?”
“That was different. That was more of a symbolic passion.”
“What happened after you wrote to him?”
“Nothing at first. A month at least, maybe even longer. Then I got a parcel. Delivered to the Journal office.”
“From Brother Adam.”
“Yes. But you’d never guess what was in it.”
“Grass.”
“Yes.”
We both laugh. “It wasn’t really grass, of course.” I explain. “It was only the stuff to grow it with. There was a sprouting tray. And some earth in a little cloth bag. Lovely earth really, very fine, a kind of sandy-brown colour. It was clean, clean earth. As though he’d dug it up especially and sieved it and prayed over it. And then there was the packet of seeds. Not the commercial kind. His own. He does his own seed culture.”
“And a letter?”
“No. No letter. Not even instructions for planting the seeds. Just the return address. Brother Adam, The Priory, 256 Beachview, Toronto.”
“How odd not to send a note.”
“That’s what made it perfect. A gift without words. As though the grass was the letter. As though it had a power purer than words.”
Judith laughs. “You always were a bit of a mystic, Charleen.”
“But what really touched me, I think, was the parcel itself. The way it was wrapped.”
“How was it wrapped?”
“Beautifully. I don’t mean aesthetically. After all, there’s a limit to the power of brown paper and string. But it was so neatly, so handsomely done up.” With such touching precision. The paper, two layers, that crisp, waxy paper, every corner perfect, and the knots were tight and trimmed and symmetrical like the knots in diagrams. And the address was printed in black ink in lovely blocky letters. “I hated to open it, in a way,” I risk telling her.
Opening it I had had the sensation of being touched by another human being; I had felt the impulse behind the wrapping—and the strength of his wish, his inexplicable wish to please me. Me!
Judith smiles and says nothing, but from her amused gaze I see she thinks I am absurd. Nevertheless she’s waiting to hear more. My account of Brother Adam cannot really interest her much—though she is currently writing a biography of a nineteenth-century naturalist and is somewhat curious about the scientific impulse—but she listens to me with the alert probing attention which she has perfected.
“At first I thought of planting the grass at the office, but I was worried it would go dry over the weekend. Besides I didn’t want to answer any questions about it. Doug Savage has a way of taking things over.” And besides it would have given his imagination something to feed on; he and Greta cherish my eccentricities as though they were rare collectables.
“Go on.”
“So I took the whole thing home on the bus. Seth thought it was a wonderful present, not at all peculiar, just wonderful. And we put in the seeds that same day. There’s quite a lot of sun in the living room. At least for Vancouver. Anyway you don’t need strong sunlight for grass. One of the things Brother Adam likes about grass is the way it adapts to any condition. It has an almost human resilience. He hates anything rigid and temperamental like those awful rubber plants everyone sticks in corners these days.”
“I like rubber plants.”
“Anyway grass can put up with almost anything. I have it in a box by the window and it does well there.”
I have to hold my tongue to keep from telling Judith more: the way, for instance, I felt about those first little seeds. That they might be supernatural, seeds sprouted from a fairy tale, empowered with magical properties, that they might produce overnight or even within an hour a species of life-giving, life-preserving grass. How that night I fell asleep thinking of the tiny, brown seeds lying sideways against the clean, pressing earth, swelling from the force of moisture, obeying the intricate commands of
“Walt Whitman?”
“That was different. That was more of a symbolic passion.”
“What happened after you wrote to him?”
“Nothing at first. A month at least, maybe even longer. Then I got a parcel. Delivered to the Journal office.”
“From Brother Adam.”
“Yes. But you’d never guess what was in it.”
“Grass.”
“Yes.”
We both laugh. “It wasn’t really grass, of course.” I explain. “It was only the stuff to grow it with. There was a sprouting tray. And some earth in a little cloth bag. Lovely earth really, very fine, a kind of sandy-brown colour. It was clean, clean earth. As though he’d dug it up especially and sieved it and prayed over it. And then there was the packet of seeds. Not the commercial kind. His own. He does his own seed culture.”
“And a letter?”
“No. No letter. Not even instructions for planting the seeds. Just the return address. Brother Adam, The Priory, 256 Beachview, Toronto.”
“How odd not to send a note.”
“That’s what made it perfect. A gift without words. As though the grass was the letter. As though it had a power purer than words.”
Judith laughs. “You always were a bit of a mystic, Charleen.”
“But what really touched me, I think, was the parcel itself. The way it was wrapped.”
“How was it wrapped?”
“Beautifully. I don’t mean aesthetically. After all, there’s a limit to the power of brown paper and string. But it was so neatly, so handsomely done up.” With such touching precision. The paper, two layers, that crisp, waxy paper, every corner perfect, and the knots were tight and trimmed and symmetrical like the knots in diagrams. And the address was printed in black ink in lovely blocky letters. “I hated to open it, in a way,” I risk telling her.
Opening it I had had the sensation of being touched by another human being; I had felt the impulse behind the wrapping—and the strength of his wish, his inexplicable wish to please me. Me!
Judith smiles and says nothing, but from her amused gaze I see she thinks I am absurd. Nevertheless she’s waiting to hear more. My account of Brother Adam cannot really interest her much—though she is currently writing a biography of a nineteenth-century naturalist and is somewhat curious about the scientific impulse—but she listens to me with the alert probing attention which she has perfected.
“At first I thought of planting the grass at the office, but I was worried it would go dry over the weekend. Besides I didn’t want to answer any questions about it. Doug Savage has a way of taking things over.” And besides it would have given his imagination something to feed on; he and Greta cherish my eccentricities as though they were rare collectables.
“Go on.”
“So I took the whole thing home on the bus. Seth thought it was a wonderful present, not at all peculiar, just wonderful. And we put in the seeds that same day. There’s quite a lot of sun in the living room. At least for Vancouver. Anyway you don’t need strong sunlight for grass. One of the things Brother Adam likes about grass is the way it adapts to any condition. It has an almost human resilience. He hates anything rigid and temperamental like those awful rubber plants everyone sticks in corners these days.”
“I like rubber plants.”
“Anyway grass can put up with almost anything. I have it in a box by the window and it does well there.”
I have to hold my tongue to keep from telling Judith more: the way, for instance, I felt about those first little seeds. That they might be supernatural, seeds sprouted from a fairy tale, empowered with magical properties, that they might produce overnight or even within an hour a species of life-giving, life-preserving grass. How that night I fell asleep thinking of the tiny, brown seeds lying sideways against the clean, pressing earth, swelling from the force of moisture, obeying the intricate commands of
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