Lawn: 👎 Natural surface: 👍

We went for a lovely walk in the morning, and then I came home to work on the gardens and the yard. I began gardening at 8:00 am, went walking from 9:30 to 10:30, and then I was back in the garden until 1:45, when I had lunch and a rest. 

I did a lot of raking to begin with, and then I did all the toting of detritus to the organic dump behind my fence, and then I decided to try setting up one of the watering systems I bought. True to form, I went for the inexpensive system. It was only 25 bucks and I bought three of them. They came without any instructions at all, so I was nervous about trying to set up a system on my own. 

I spent just over two hours thinking it through and getting one of the for beds done. It looked okay. The feed for the first bed loops around and feeds the second bed. I don’t have enough water pressure to make it work. I’m junking it and going back to hand watering. Watering here is a daily obligation here during the Summer. Sometimes I get fed up with it, but my plants are my friends, my babies, and I’m a devoted dad.

I was wrong to plant lawn. When I went out on my walkabout last night, I realized that I love the natural surface much, much more than lawn. I’ve become proud of the natural surface because it looks like the surface of park meadows and in public parks. It looks like Gabriola now, and what could be better than that? It gives me great pleasure to take in the view of my back yard. It’s like taking a wonderful drug, standing in the courtyard, and looking out at the rest of the lot. I did that.

I used to produce public events, oven in large venues, often as a fundraiser for a charity. But I also produced plays, exhibitions, lectures, books and musicals. My dresses were my last big project. I felt sad to realize I didn’t have the dive to do another project when I moved here. This I realized, after I renovated a building here to become my studio. Sigh. But now that my yard looks so good, I realize it has been my project. I never thought of it as such, and I think that is because this is for me and not an audience.

I’ve always loved being here, and that is a good thing because I’m pretty much symptom-free when I’m here alone with my pet family.

One of the greatest books I have ever read was The Professor and the Madman. It’s about a good man, a physician driven mad with severe PTSD, who monist a crime in England. He becomes the first man, as I recall, to be found not guilty by reason of insanity in Western jurisprudence. The good doctor was given a very accommodating prison cell. What made his story memorable, is what he did with the rest of his life after his crime. It’s a great read. Pinecone Park is my prison cell. The good doctor and I are both incarcerated by mental ill health (but I’m not locked in).

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I had some back-and-forth with Beth about a past post. It was one of my Mad Man’s Diary posts. I’ve never explained my MMD posts, I just posted them.

I’ve blogged about my travels, my life, and my projects. When I was hit with mental illness and stated living with very disruptive symptoms, I came to this space to work things out. This is how I think. Witing makes me think better. 

I was discharged into the hands of Dr. Shoja. She is my crutch. Here is where I worked out what worked out what to tell her on my first day. Suddenly, diary became practical. I could cut and paste and print it or put it into the chat function on Zoom.

This is my safe place. But it’s practical for me. I cannot talk about deeply personal stuff. Reflexive conversation is very difficult for people with many forms of speech disorders, including mine. So, when I write about ideas hear, or books, or movies, or things that have happened to me, I can cut and paste from here into Zoom chat. It makes communication easier for me. I have found my emotional reaction to my diagnosis as challenging as my physical symptoms, so I write about that here. And I write about it to give to Dr. Shoja. That’s how we work. Madman’s Diary will likely continue whenever I am in her care. But I don’t live with the burden of my abuse day-to-day, my head is in the joy of life on Gabriola, in Pinecone Park. I’m an optimist. If it weren’t for FND, I wouldn’t be living in this glorious cell.

There’s also this: If I were to write about Paul Mescal coming to live with me, and having his baby, you might want to reach out. You have my email.

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Today is bright, sunny and mild. It’s a perfect day for gardening. It’s now 9:30 am, and I’ve already done an hour’s work out there. Next: Walking Sheba, and then back to work. I’m getting to the last of cleaning up the yard. I should finish that chore today. Then I will start on the gardens. They are desperately in need of attention. I was hoping Bronwyn would do the gardens, and ass more compost. But she hasn’t answered my email of 10 days ago. She’s brilliant at gardening, and shite at business management.

Some shots of Pinecone Park:

Eoin and François's latest batch of babies.

One of their Pekin Ducks. My favourite breed.