Welcome PJ Sharon

Welcome to Mary's Garden. Hope you had a wonderful St. Paddy's Day. As I'm Irish it's always a month long celebration. It is PJ's monthly visit to the garden. Enjoy!

Garden tip: Force blooms of early flowering shrubs for a pop of indoor spring color!
Cut branches of the pussy willow, forsythia, or quince to force into early bloom. Bring the branches indoors and place in a vase of water. They should bloom in a few weeks. Once pussy willows reach their peak, remove them from the water and allow them to dry. Aside from being a lovely reminder of those early spring days, they are a wonderful addition to dried flower arrangements that last all summer and well into fall.

Stalking the elusive Pussy Willow
When I was a kid, I recall my mother taking me on early spring hikes in mid-March to gather pussy willows. We would tromp through the still-frozen, swampy lowlands by the Scantic River, not far from our house in suburban CT. We would get so excited; it was as if we were stalking a rare bird or embarking on a naturalist’s hunt for the holy grail of blossoming treasures. It took keen observation to detect the long thin willow shoots among the beach saplings, cat tails, and gray chaos of a long-winter’s thrall over the marshes, but when we would find them—boots covered in mud and chilled to the bone—mom’s face lit with amused satisfaction. A rare expression for the troubled and overburdened mother of seven.

As much as we enjoyed those hikes, they stopped abruptly when I was twelve. My mother’s health declined, and her forays into the great outdoors she loved so much were curtailed by chemo and multiple cancer surgeries. But knowing how much she loved the wispy willows, and feeling helpless to do little else, my dad planted a pussy willow tree right in our own back yard, where she was able to enjoy them for a few more springs before cancer finally took her the day after her fiftieth birthday.
That was long ago when I was a child of sixteen. I’ve since outlived her years, and been blessed with several more, but I never forget those adventures into the murky woodlands, and I always keep my eyes open for tell-tale spikes of furry little buds when I hike in my own woods in the month of March.

Do you have certain flowers, scents, or experiences that bring to mind special memories of a lost loved one?
Fact and fiction often blend in the mind of a writer. That is true of ON THIN ICE, my second novel, which was as much my story as it was my protagonist, Penny’s. Although the names, places, and characters are fictional, some of the events are based on my life experience. Including my mother’s illness and death, my teen pregnancy, and discovering a secret my mother kept for far too long—the consequences of which are still unfolding today…

ON THIN ICE blurb:
Seventeen-year-old figure skater, Penny Trudeau, is a liar. She knows it, hates it, and can’t help herself. The truth is too hard and ugly. Her mother’s health is failing, her father treats her as if she’s invisible, and she is starving—for food, for love, for acceptance, and mostly for the perfection that is just beyond her reach. When she finds comfort in the arms of Carter McCray, a hockey hunk a few years too old for her, her lies begin a chain of events that have dire consequences, not the least of which are a rape she can’t remember and a pregnancy she can’t ignore. If she reveals her secrets, will the shock and disappointment mean the end for her mother? Or has her mother been keeping the biggest secret of all?

Comments

Unknown said…
I always enjoy reading PJ's writing and I appreciate her honesty. Pussy willows are always a happy sight for me, and it was pleasant to read PJ's memories of them. On Thin Ice was a view into her young life. Thank you, PJ, for sharing your memories today on Mary's Garden blog.
PJ Sharon said…
Thanks so much for stopping by. Glad you enjoy my stories. Good to know On Thin Ice touched your heart! It was definitely a labor of love and healing for me.

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