Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.”

Today, please welcome writer

GINA FERRARA

My neighbor Jennifer’s garden is more than magical, especially now. The extreme heat in New Orleans makes growing anything a challenge. Jennifer’s garden, though, is a rare place that thrives, where discoveries can constantly be made. A plant that might have been completely undetected on Tuesday, suddenly emerges the next day as something extraordinary and spectacular. And if Jennifer is outside, she is quick to answer questions or offer explanations.

One of the plants I particularly admire is what she identifies as a Turkish cap plant and said was a member of the okra family, which made the blossoms edible. While I don’t care for okra and wouldn’t appreciate the blossoms for their taste, their beauty is another story. The flowers never completely open and each one appears to have a feathery quill rising from the petals. What makes Jennifer’s Turkish caps also stand out is their color, a pink that is both exclamatory and subdued at the same time. They pop in ways that are identical to unexpected realizations, even in the depths of the direst month, when physical and mental landscapes are overwhelmed by the intense and vigilant heat.

I was returning one evening from walking our beloved English bulldog, Sugar, who, like a garden, has a hard time of it in warm weather. It was past dusk, and Jennifer was working in her garden. I noted that she had cut down her climbing rose bushes that had wrapped themselves around the cypress fence. While the roses were gone, the sword ferns beneath them were vibrant and verdant, remarkably fresh. Jennifer stopped to pet Sugar, who also welcomed the break and took the opportunity to sploot for a rest. She is obsessed with lizards and chases them with vigor, even when the heat index reaches triple digits. Their quickness comes in handy as they manage to escape, chameleon inches always disappearing in split seconds resulting in small triumphs. Jennifer told me that when I got Sugar home, I should come back and get plant cuttings of the Turkish caps. It was then that I spotted them in blue and orange plastic cups.

Ten minutes later, I returned to Jennifer’s. She gave me specific instructions to keep them inside and to make sure that the cups stayed half filled with water so the Turkish caps could sprout roots. The best place for them during this sprouting time was indoors in a place that gets indirect light. Once the trimmings sprout, they can be potted and moved outside.

I’m a writer who is lucky enough to have my own room, my own space. Had I been told this as a child, I would have been quite doubtful, not about being a writer but about having my own space. Room color, room decorations, room arrangements were not my choice. Those things were decided by my older sister. In our shared room, we had astrological pennants that hung over our beds. Hers stated, “I’m a Libra, and I am happy” in an italicized font for emphasis. It was fuchsia, the shade of a bright azalea. The one above my bed, a shade of morose blue, undoubtedly the color of the sea near Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” declared, “I’m a Virgo and I’m fussy” also in the strange font that would capture attention without fail. So, this early history of having a shared room, and recognizing that many writers lack this luxury, makes me grateful and appreciative. My writing room is my favorite shade of green, the color of water that is brighter than what eternally brushes against the cliffs of Dover. The room has large windows and faces east, so morning light enters mottled, a mix of moving shadows and patterned sunlight because of the collection of trees that are outside. It’s the room where I create, write poems, and with Virgo fussiness, I take care with what I place in the room. Sugar is usually with me, days and nights, snoring loudly, offering her own version of white noise

The Turkish caps are in front of a window on a low bookshelf, part of a tableau that includes a glass globe, an aloe vera plant, and a black Virgo coffee mug, maybe even a tad more somber than the pennant of my youth. The cuttings are not disappointing me. I have been keeping the plastic cups half filled, following Jennifer’s instructions to the letter. Each day brings blossoms, pink epiphanies and white threads of roots, visual, botanical reminders of how and where writing begins.

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NOT THOSE SAME 3 QUESTIONS…

1. What one word best describes your writing life?

Rooted.

2. Is there a book you read over and over again?

Two books that I read over and over again are One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath.

3. What is your strangest obsession or habit?

I hate overhead lights so I rely on windows and lamps to provide light in the house. I am also obsessed with pigs and have been collecting them since I was ten.

By GINA FERRARA