Harrison's Bonsai

So, I get a little bit impatient with grandchildren. They ask me to get them water, find their baseball belts, Boy Scout belts, regular belts...cleats, ball caps, Lacrosse gloves, ski masks, make them grilled Swiss and pickle sandwiches for school lunches---and before I even realize that it's a stupid thing to do, I jump up and do their bidding! Since I run circles for about 18 hours a day, I do whatever they ask, and then feel resentful, irritated, taken advantage of.

Harrison is obsessed with Bonsai trees. It's hard to live with someone obsessed! He had to have the dish, plant, shears, soil, little decorative clay figurine, how-to book. After all of these demands were satisfied, he wanted to visit Bonsai nurseries all the way through northern California and better still, to collect seedlings along the freeway! All the way home from our family Easter weekend, he gushed and droned about the glories of collecting his own trees. This went on...non-stop...for about three hours. Not able to get in a word, Carter fell asleep in the back seat of the car with "Mrs. Pete," his parakeet, and I drove and listened and thought of just the hazards of pulling to the side of the freeway! And then scaling the road cut to pluck tortured seedlings from decomposing granite! Really, I just needed to get the kids back to Reno for two Little League games!

Nearing Donner Summit, I noticed a service road parallel to the freeway, with tiny trees growing in the lush underbrush. I could see pine and manzanita...I left the freeway, and drove slowly along until I spied a tiny incense cedar seedling. Naturalized daffodils were blooming everywhere in the gloom of a passing snowstorm and the trees were dripping and quiet. Harrison filled an empty Starbucks cup with soil and gently pulled the seedling out of the ground. He also pulled up a tiny manzanita, and two acorns that had split and started to root. He now considers the boxwood he planted and trimmed---a little "tree" that he has adored--- to be a "fake." It's a bush, not a tree, and though it will remain as part of his "Bonsai garden," his prizes will be the cedar, the manzanita, and hopefully, two oaks.

I had given in again! But what a reward! This Bonsai fascination will likely be life-long. He will remember those moments off of the freeway, with joy and tenderness! With a lightness of heart, he had a few base hits during his baseball game that riled the stands to gasping cheers! He talked the outfield into collecting dandelion flowers and greens for Mrs. Pete, and he fell sound asleep tonight with a sweet smile.