I’ve been away from home again, and this time I was at David’s family house on the Jersey shore. Knowing internet access would be sketchy there (one spot on the railing at the southwest corner of the deck picks up a faint signal sometimes), I downloaded a WordPress app for my iPhone. I wanted to write about the paradox of the garden, about a conversation I had with my friend Kay about that, how we love our gardens and want them to be a source of joy and relaxation, and how often gardening instead ends up being a tortuous series of unachievable visions of bounty and perfection.
So I began the post on my new app on the drive down, then caught enough internet off the corner of the deck on Saturday morning to finish the post. Later that night I checked it online and all looked fine. Yesterday morning I was trying to look at it on my iPhone app and it was still the original few sentences of the first draft. I tapped update, watched the whirling circle at the top of my screen, and there was the same beginning of the draft. Tap, whirl, draft. Over and over.
Then I looked online. What had been the fully realized post was now the few sentence draft. So I quickly wrote a sketchy replacement post, figured it had changed because of some iPhone app interface, and deleted the app. I’m back at Adrienne and Matt’s this evening, where there is abundant internet, and checked my blog. My sketchy post seemed to have gotten even sketchier — did I really post something that unfinished, or is there someone in the internet universe who doesn’t want me posting about how wonderful but agonizing gardening can be?
So, I took down the post. Now the big gardening questions are how many kazillibillion peas will I have when I get home tomorrow, will my cole crop refugees from the woodchucked garden bed be flourishing or gnawed stumps, and will the carrots have finally germinated? And how much will I torture myself to get done in the garden before leaving on Friday for our walk across England. Yes, Friday! Adventure awaits.
Grace Mattern 