Author Archives: janishaag

Not just because the monthly feeis automatically snatched from mychecking account, and not simply because a clean car runs better,as my father used to say, and notbecause it’s easy to drive through, the driver’s front tire grabbedby the conveyer, the … Continue reading →

(for Catherine O’Brien) And there we sat on her sofa,our dead husbands prowlingthe room like phantom cats, though she never knew mine,and I never knew hers, driftingin, as they do, as we chatted, my photographer and her artist,some of his … Continue reading →

You thought you were done,didn’t you? That after the mostdifficult human in your life— the one who made you, bore you,raised you, challenged youendlessly—had, as they say, left the building, you’d passedthe final exam. Maybe not with an A,though you … Continue reading →

next door sit on the front stepseach morning and, as I watermy flourishing garden, I hear them giggling, cackling, snortingover their daily brew.They always make me smile. The head witch, aka the GardenGoddess Next Door, who oftendresses as a witch … Continue reading →

(For Earthlings, especially those born on the summer solstice…in the northern hemisphere) Let us tilt ourselves sunwardthen, we northerners,celebrating more hoursof light than dark, the sunchugging along itshighest path throughthe sky, mindful that our southernneighbors on the planetare turning their … Continue reading →

While she is away, Katie textsto say that we who are wateringin her absence should feel freeto pluck and eat the tiny rubiesmasquerading as strawberriesin her garden. “They’re small, but mighty,”she writes. Thinking of her fledgling crop,I go to my … Continue reading →

I spent afternoons mostly atop a lifeguard chair six feet above the deck of Roseville High School pool—when I wasn’t taking a turn standing on the opposite side of the deck, twirling my lanyard-tethered Acme Thunderer around a couple of … Continue reading →

(for Autumn Thompson and Brett Jeffrieson their wedding day) Now the California heat, warmingeverything, growing every thing,if we add enough water, vegetables leaping in gardenslike hurdlers, up and over,sustenance for weeks, the zucchini on stealth runsmaking a break for it, … Continue reading →

Today that would be me, figuring outthe drip system routine for just partof the magnificence on the cornerof the Santa Ynez garden goddess. I had another one next door years agonamed Inez, who politely asked if shecould plant the strip … Continue reading →

(for Lisa Morgan and Stuart Morgan) The day I came to your mother’s houseto gather donate-ables you were kindlygiving to a woman needing pots and pans, spatulas and big stirring spoons,you had snipped a rose from her garden,a perfect blushing … Continue reading →