We were in the garage today, and I found a parasol. I'd kept it in the car for Penelope to use on our sunny picnic days, but on one of many occasions of unloading the car into the garage to make room for flowers, I'd forgotten it there and it grew moldy in the dampness.
I explained that we'd have to get rid of it because of the mold, and had a hard time explaining what mold is. Still don't really know.
I brought it inside and laid it on the hearth to burn, agreeing with Penelope that the ashes from the parasol could be sprinkled into our garden's soil, making it healthy and happy for future flowers to grow.
When she was busy on the other side of the room, I sat down to have a quiet moment with the parasol before lighting it. Then I heard her tender voice, all of a sudden right next to me saying, "Mom, I know it's hard to let go of the special parasol because it's from your wedding day, but it's ok to say goodbye."
We hadn't spoken of it being from my wedding day, but she remembers the photos of me in my tiered lace and dupioni handmade dress holding the parasol. It seems so cheesy now, after all the hundreds of weddings I've worked in the decade since my own with ubiquitous baskets of parasols for guests. This one was vintage though, made of crinkly yellowing paper and bamboo. It sat in a corner or shelf of every home I made these past ten years, from San Francisco to Santa Rosa to Vallejo to Petaluma, its final resting place.
It burned beautifully, the paper first, then the skeleton bamboo frame. Penelope sat next to me and we squeezed hands as the flames turned the parasol to ash.
Tomorrow we'll sprinkle it over our garden. Our garden, whose soil was parched, crusty and baked from heat and drought those first few months, and is now deliciously damp from recent rains. Our garden which harbors dozens of seeds invisible to any eye. I have no idea which ones will take root and blossom into maturity. But I wonder if this ash will balance the substance of the soil in the exact way that even just one seed will thrive from. What a miracle that would be.
November 17, 2021 | Jaclyn Edds Konczal