I often find my muse in the garden.
Trouble is, it stays there when I run off to my computer to jot down the Deep Thought it has revealed to me.
And by the time my fingers get to the keyboard, the Deep Thought that the muse has revealed to me usually will have escaped back to the garden, hiding somewhere between the beans and the carrots, or perhaps in the greenhouse, communing with the tomatillos and cucumbers.
Then I suddenly realize that my fingers are in pause mode. I鈥檓 eavesdropping on a mother-daughter conversation about鈥� I can鈥檛 recall what it was about. It was just the sort of thing that mothers and daughters might talk about while clearing the table and tidying the kitchen together.
I can only recall that it was more interesting than what I am writing鈥� or not writing, that is, because the Deep Thought remains elusive.
So I return to the scene of the crime, as it were. I retrace my steps to the garden, hoping to stumble on the exact location where my muse revealed the Deep Thought to me.
Sometimes it works. Or not.
It鈥檚 not among the squashes and pumpkins, although I did find a weed or two there that needed pulling.
And it鈥檚 not under either of the apple trees. But I did notice that the sticky hormone traps had put one more apple maggot fly out of commission, so that I might have at least a few edible Jonagolds this September.
Munching a few solitary raspberries, a last-ditch effort for this year鈥檚 canes to procreate, doesn鈥檛 reveal the muse or its Deep Thought 鈥� but it reminds me鈥� I haven鈥檛 completed today鈥檚 tomato pollination ritual yet.
I pull out the old electric toothbrush that I use for the job. It vibrates kind of like a bumblebee, and thus easily coaxes pollen from stamen to pistil, with the surplus floating lazily to nearby flowers and to neighbouring plants, rewarding me later with delicious tomatoes the like of which no one has ever found in a store.
As the toothbrush hums to life behind the ear of the first flower, a soft yellow puff of pollen bursts out鈥� and it suddenly comes to me. My muse has returned, and with it has come the Deep Thought.
It was something about Christy Clark鈥檚 resignation as BC Liberal leader鈥� oh, well.
