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| Harper Lee (courtesy of The Guardian) |
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Harper Lee. When
asked why she never published a second novel after To Kill a Mockingbird, she’d say something like, “I guess I didn’t
have anything else I wanted to say.”
As the weeks
slide past and my muse apparently has taken herself off on an extended vacation,
it occurs to me that perhaps I don’t have anything left I want to say either. About
gardening, I mean.
Knowing
when to quit is an inexact science—just look at Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” and
the chunky-breasted bathers of Renoir’s last years, the post-Ludlum Bourne
books and that pathetic “sequel” to Gone
with the Wind Alexandra Somebody foisted on us, or string theory. As a
believer in the law of diminishing returns, I feel it’s time to put “Gardening
from the Ground Up” out to pasture. Long may she graze in cyber-space, in 18-to-29-second
hits.
To Billie,
and Julie, and Chuck, and Yvonne and Karen and Margaret: you know where to find
me if you want. I so appreciate your support and the comments and conversations.
Just so you know: that part doesn’t have to end.
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| The old writer |
To
paraphrase Douglas MacArthur (that self-promoting SOB), old writers never
die. They just turn the page.
One last
time, thanks for dropping by.
Kathy
