Purple Packaged Present
Late last night, after all the House Concert guests had gone and we had said our see-you-in-the-mornings to Randal, I headed sleepward to find a present propped up against the pillows on the bed. Purple gift wrap and purple ribbon enclosed a suspiciously book-shaped package and all but said aloud, “Love, Stephanie.” Which is exactly what was written on the enclosed card.
This was the second House Concert in a row that I’ve been on the receiving end of such a lovely surprise from my purple-loving friend. Her ‘excuse’ this time was my birthday; last time it was something imaginative like my ‘community spirit.’ Both books have to do with letters written by interesting people and both have been right up my alley.
“Two Gardeners”
This one, Two Gardeners, A Friendship in Letters, documents the friendship of two amazing women – Katharine S. White, long-time editor of the New Yorker and distinguished Southern gardener Elizabeth Lawrence, who wrote a weekly column for The Charlotte Observer. According to the back cover blurb, in more than a hundred and fifty letters they discussed subjects ranging from bloom times in their respective zones to meetings with cantankerous plantsmen, their burgeoning families, and, as time passed, the vicissitudes of old age.
I don’t ‘know’ Elizabeth Lawrence but, as they say, any friend of Katharine S. White is bound to become a friend of mine. I first ‘met’ White in the Letters of E.B. White, written by her husband who is publicly famous among writers for his Elements of Style and among children of all ages for Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. In my opinion, he was an essayist without peer and his influence on the New Yorker’s style still shows. When I read his letters to his wife years and years ago, I have to say that I was quite jealous of her… in a good way, of course!
The subject being gardening seems like icing on the proverbial cake. I can’t wait to see what the ladies have to say about this current bane of my domestic existence. And about all those other things that busy women wrestle with and writing women talk about to one another.
Once again, thank you Stephanie! In fact, double thank you! I’d much rather read about gardening than get all achy doing it these days! Now I have the perfect excuse.
When, what a relief you didn’t brand me as unimaginative! I think sometimes things just scream to go to certain people and this one, like the other, had your name written all over it. And as to the actual gardening, my gardener is rather whimsical in arriving, but does lovely work when she does and I would share her.