The Tao of Martha (32 page)

He shakes his head vehemently. “No. No, no. You are not doing this to me. I am not going to be your pumpkin bitch. As it is, I can barely move my shoulder from all the damn painting. I’m not carving your pumpkins for you.”

I’m taken aback. “Didn’t ask you to; I’m just commenting on this being a little tougher than I remember.”

“Uh-huh.”

I keep plugging along on the top of my pumpkin. “But the skin is thicker than I recall. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Mmm.”

The force I’m exerting on the blade causes it to bow and the whole damn thing almost snaps, at which point it would have slashed the tender skin between my thumb and forefinger. “Shit! I almost stabbed myself!”

Fletch’s lips tighten as he works. His deft but delicate swipes cut a smooth swath through his own pumpkin and he’s quickly able to remove the top. He is the Pumpkin Whisperer.

“Hey, Fletch, that was so easy for you! Will you demonstrate how you did it?”

With a fake Southern accent, Fletch drawls, “‘Say, Tom, let
me
whitewash a little.’”

“I was just—”

“Going to offer to trade me your apple core for the opportunity to carve your pumpkin? No.”

I grumble something about liking to see him do it better, but he doesn’t rise to my bait.

Oh, crap. He’s right. I actually
do
Tom Sawyer him. My bad.

Eventually I’m able to remove my own lid, and I begin the process of scooping out the pumpkin guts. In retrospect, I should have allowed the pumpkins to come up to room temperature first, because not only is this process slimy and disgusting—it’s also freezing. Every time I grab a
handful of innards, half of the stringy goo gushes out and squirts all over the newspapers, and the other half ends up on my shirt. When I use a spoon to scrape down the sides, my wrist quickly grows sore, and picking up stray seeds is tantamount to trying to catch a greased pig.

I scrape and squirt, slosh and spill. This is gross.

There’s not one satisfying aspect to this whole process.

And now I stink of gourd bowels.

“This is nauseating,” I comment.

“It sure is,” he replies placidly. That’s when I notice that he had the presence of mind to put on rubber gloves before disemboweling his pumpkin.

“I’m not enjoying this.” I sulk. This is not his fault, of course. (But I don’t tell him that.)

“Listen.” He waxes philosophical while smoothing out the sides of his perfectly rounded pumpkin-lid hole. “There’s a reason we stopped carving pumpkins years ago. Bet this is a lot like dyeing Easter eggs. In your head you spend all year fantasizing about how fun pumpkin carving is going to be, but in reality, it’s just foul-smelling and labor-intensive, and ultimately all your hard work will be eaten by rodents.”

I reply, “You may be onto something.”

He wipes a stray bit of pumpkin gut from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Martha’s created an industry out of home-based initiatives, but her success came because people enjoy doing the activities she’s taught them. It doesn’t matter if you can perfectly sculpt your pumpkin if you actively despise every minute of it. So I say, if you don’t enjoy the process, then stop. That idea applies to anything in life, not just gourds.”

I glower at my stupid, cold, slimy pumpkin while he talks. I’m so aggravated with this project that I’m not going to order my usual pumpkin latte next time I’m at Starbucks. No, wait, I will order a VENTI latte, because that means more pumpkin had to die in order for me to drink it. Ha! Yes. That’s exactly what I’ll do.

My workspace is glopped with pumpkin innards, and small shards have embedded themselves in the rug underneath. The newspaper covering is moist and sticky and starting to fuse with the tabletop. Pumpkin ooze is winnowing its way into the wood grain. I glance at my hands and they’re stained orange and with layers of pumpkin flesh layered under my nails.

This?

Right here?

Is why I hate Halloween.

While he speaks, Fletch removes his gloves and wipes his hands on a paper towel. “Jen, I’m sure there are plenty of other festive ways to decorate with pumpkins that don’t require us to perform surgery on them. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and by cat I mean pumpkin. Can’t you just dip them in glitter and call it a day?”

I need a minute to process the genius of what he said.

Without even realizing it, Fletch has just elucidated another facet in the Tao of Martha, which dovetails so neatly into what I discovered about opting for simplicity earlier today: There’s more than one path on the road to beautiful.

Glitter pumpkins it is.

I
completely reimagine my Halloween display using whole pumpkins as the focal point, instead of jack-o’-lanterns. Apparently Martha regularly glitters the shit out of pumpkins and gourds. This is a brilliant alternative to the hassle and filth of carving, and I’m delighted by this turn of events. And Fletch was so pleased at not being stuck dissecting great gourds last night that he agrees to get his doughnut on with me at a pumpkin patch about an hour away.

Today’s the most perfect specimen of fall day imaginable. The skies are impossibly blue and cloudless. The sun’s strong enough that we’re able to shed our jackets, but it’s not so hot that we complain of an Indian summer. We’re both in excellent moods and we laugh all the way to South Barrington…where we discover that the entire population of greater Chicagoland has had the exact same idea today.

WTF?

If the Pumpkinfest by our house was like a carnival, then what’s happening here is more on the scale of Disney World. Apparently this veritable Pumpkinpalooza is in the middle of nowhere because it’s so damn monolithic. Traffic to get onto the road leading to the festival is backed up for half an hour, and the parking lot is larger than that of Kings Island. If I thought having to lug a pumpkin three-tenths of a mile was bad, that pales in comparison to the literal mile we’d have to hoof to the entrance.

Suddenly, contending with a few dozen SUVs doesn’t seem so bad.

Fletch is exactly as fond of crowds as I am. We both grimace at the flannel-wearing, stroller-pushing, pumpkin-carrying mass of humanity standing between us and the hot cider.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Fletch says.

Even though I’ve completed physical therapy on my foot, it’s still painful and I’m very cautious about walking long distances. “I’m not sure I can make it all the way to the entrance. Would you want to drop me off and meet me after you park?”

“I am not your pumpkin valet.”

“Damn.”

He surveys the line of traffic again. “So…how important are these doughnuts to you?” he asks.

Not enough to force the natural flow of things.

I tell him, “Not enough to risk walking with a limp for the next month.”

“Would you have a fit if we skipped it?”

“Honestly?” I study the ocean of cars and tentatively flex my foot. Ouch. “No.”

It takes us another twenty minutes until we’re able to turn the car around and head back up north. Our ride home is less festive, since we know that there’s no prospect of cider or doughnuts waiting for us at the end.

However…all is not lost!

As it turns out, the universe really is Team Doughnut. Or possibly Team Simplicity.

Fletch takes a different route home, and on our way we pass the first Pumpkinfest. Suddenly, the crowd and the parking situation seem very manageable, and I’m able to get to the entry without once hobbling.

Fletch insists we ingest some protein before we complete our mission, so we feast on brats and burgers and roasted corn. Neither one of us can resist the siren song of a lemon shake-up, so we wash our meal down with a couple of small bucketsful.

After wandering around the event—and briefly debating if I want to have my photo taken with a baby kangaroo—we order two hot ciders and half a dozen doughnuts directly out of the fryer. We’re content to work on our drinks before the doughnuts are cool enough to touch.

As we perch on a bench across from the Tilt-A-Whirl, Fletch takes the first taste.

“What do you think?” I ask.

He cocks his head to inspect his doughnut before taking another cautious bite. He chews thoughtfully, and answers me only once he swallows, and that’s when a huge grin spreads across his face. “I…finally understand why you’ve been obsessing about these for thirty-five years.”

I take my own bite, and the sugary spice is all that I remember and more. The warm cake is delicate and ever so slightly redolent of apples. The crunch of the coating is the perfect contrast to the soft, doughy
middle, and the whole experience is enhanced times a million with a sip of the cider.

We stay on that damn bench until we inhale every single one of those doughnuts and the last dregs of our cider. That’s when Fletch turns to me and says, “Do you want to throw up now?”

“Little bit,” I concur.

Of course, the plan was to purchase more pumpkins for glittering and a few gourds, but we quickly come to realize that the event isn’t crowded because everyone is inside in line waiting to pay for their purchases.

Martha’s Tao dictates it’s time to leave.

Also, Fletch says our indulgence has triggered his heretofore nonexistent diabetes, so we head home. Fletch collapses on the couch in sugar shock, but I still have supplies to buy for my outdoor display. I kiss him good-bye and make my way back to Home Depot.

When I was here yesterday, I bought a bunch of mums along with the pumpkins. In previous years, I’d set a pot or two out on the porch and call it done. But yesterday it occurred to me that by arranging mums around the dried grasses in all my planters, I’ve discovered
an entirely new planting season.

This is huge for me.

I live for the spring, when I can finally chase away the dull grays of
winter by filling my planters with pansies and hardy ivy. Sometimes the only thing keeping me from going all
The Shining
during the long, dark Chicago winter is imagining finally working in the garden again. Then summer’s even better when I’m not limited to designing with the most frost-resistant varietals.

But having the opportunity to redo my planters again
in the fall
?

I feel like I’m through the looking glass here.

After I planted my containers yesterday, I had a couple of extra mums. So I plan to take the stupid hollowed-out pumpkins from last night and, following Martha’s lead, use them as cachepots. I’ll toss in a couple of ornamental cabbages, prop them up on hay bales, and then scatter the whole display with a variety of gourds, and boom! #WINNING!

I’d hoped to circle the porch columns with big stalks of corn, but once I grab a couple of bundles, I realize the folly of this idea. I thought cornstalks would be light and airy, but they are not only ridiculously heavy, but also terribly cumbersome. After hamstringing a couple of unsuspecting Home Depot shoppers with my bunch (not entirely my fault; they were busy texting), I put the bundles back. Even though I parked close, there’s still too much potential for this project to go all Three Stooges.

I pay for my pumpkins and gourds and I’m loading everything into the car when I feel the first twinge in my abdomen. In retrospect, I probably should have stopped after the first ear of corn. Or doughnut. Also? The whiskey sours I made to appease Fletch last night aren’t exactly helping either. Guess I forgot to read the memo on moderation.

Michaels is just around the corner from Home Depot, so I’m sure I can get in and out and home before any unpleasantness.

Of course, that’s what I think every time I go to Michaels.

To preface what comes next, I readily admit that I’m on the wrong side of forty and I’ve never met a carb I didn’t like. I desperately need a
cut and a color, and there are only so many ravages of time I can hold back with injectable cosmeceuticals. Also? I dress like a page from an L.L.Bean catalog, circa 1983. The sexiest shoe I own is a tasseled loafer. I’m aware that I do not inspire anyone to say, “I’d like a piece of
that
,” when I pass, unless they’re referring to the cake I’m carrying. Yet every time I step into a craft store with its subgenre of cat-sweatshirted, bowl-cut, non-hipster-yet-still-gigantic-plastic-glasses-framed patrons, I feel like Gisele-freaking-Bündchen.