ArchivedLogs:Pick Me Up

Pick Me Up
Dramatis Personae Jax, Melinda
In Absentia	2014-12-28 '
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Garden Plot - Lower East Side
The smell instantly changes here to something greener, herbally sharp and mulchy; paved walkway drifts at angles through raised multi-tiered garden beds, reaching varying elevations of a mere foot above the ground to three feet, each held up by retaining walls of leftover stone from the houses, riddled here and there with spiraling mosaic dragons. While companion flowers of red geranium, fuchsia bee balm, violet petunias, pastel-and-white sweet pea, are sprinkled throughout and alongside each box, it's primarily vegetables; between tall eerie trellis spires of fixed animal bones, clung over with curlicues of lush vine sheets and okra, delicate netting protects lower levels of melon and tomato, kale and tomatoes and a number of other edible foods, with a separate box of sand-loving root vegetables sending up frondy foliage for carrot and onion and garlic. To one side, a compost heap lets of faint shimmers of heat and steam, to the other, a strongly scented bed of myriad herbs, both medicinal and otherwise, flanked on one side by a large healthy swell of coneflower. With a shed nearby housing gardening tools, the whole of it is watered by a network of hidden hosing that gives off faint tickles of mist when in use, ribboned with rainbows, and there are structures in place to suggest the garden can be enclosed in winter months. It's not actually all that cold out today but it's warmer still here, right now, the gardens enclosed for winter in a wood-and-polyethylene frame erected over top of the beds. Jax has been working, maybe; he's dressed like it, anyway, in faded-old jeans, Cooper Union sweatshirt with sleeves pushed up over his arms, just pulling off a dirt-crusted pair of gardening gloves and rising to his feet to brush dirt, too, off his knees. He's starting to put his tools into a bucket, humming quiet and kind of tuneless to himself; a small host of tiny glowing buglike creatures in odd neon colours flits around him in time with the humming. Melinda arrives some time in the afternoon, dressed in a light fall jacket over a sweater dress and argyle leggings in gray, blue, and white. She's got off white boots that come up to her knees and a coral colored scarf wrapped around her neck made up of a light gauzy material. In her hands, she holds a couple bags, both of them reusable grocery bags that have seen a good deal of use, so they are less likely to display what is actually inside them. She pulls off a light weight knit cap, the warmth of the abnormal December day inspiring her to doff it. She makes her way into the garden quietly, looking around before finally settling her gaze on the figure humming by one of the gardens. She inhales deeply before pressing on. "Hey, Jax. Just the person I was looking for." Jax glances up, the glowing bugs around him fuzzing out and vanishing as a reflexive smile slips into place on his face. There's a pair of pruning shears still in his hands; he lifts them to his forehead in a sort of salute. "Hihi! Wait me? Really? Whysat?" He glances down at the garden bed he stands behind, at his dirt-speckled jeans, as if these things might offer some answer. "Oh. I went shopping. I thought of you and wanted to share." The closer Mel comes, the better she smells - or what she is carrying smells. She unwinds one set of handles from the pair of grocery bags she carries so that she can hold one bag open, exposing it to the other man. Inside, there's a black and yellow bag with writing all over the outside and a lovely fragrance drifting out. "Winter is tough, so I thought maybe you could use a pick me up. Pretty much everything in here is gold and silver." "Oh -- oh!" Jax's eye opens wider, his smile spreading wider, too, with the sight of the familiar bag. The good smell. "/Oh/. Oh gosh is it /sparkly/?" He's bouncing slightly on his toes with this question. "Because oh gosh thank you the sparkly ones are the best. Kinda just make winter so much more -- well. Shiny. I gone t'Lush a bit ago but I was /so/ good I /only/ got the things on my list. I kinda get B a /few/ bottles'a Snow Fairy 'round this time 'cuz'a they don't sell it the rest'a the year an' she loves it so much but -- then I didn't get no /other/ stuff really." "Well, there was a sale yesterday and I got there early. Pretty much everything I bought was half price because of it. And yes. I didn't forget your desire for shiny. Money's been tight, so I'm doing a post Christmas sales present run. I hope that's okay." Melinda reaches inside and pulls out the bag, presenting it to him with a little more emphasis now, since he didn't exactly dive in himself. "This one is mainly for you. Happy Holidays." Jax stoops to set his shears in the bucket of tools and then rocks forward onto his toes, taking the bag from Mel together with a small peck on the cheek. "More'n okay, it's lovely. Thank you, honey-honey. Be glad for the -- extra sparkle." His other arm snakes around her to give a quick squeeze. "M'kinda terrible 'bout Christmas presents anyway," he admits with a deep blush. "I do it for the kids but outside'a them it's like -- when I see things I think people'll like I jus' get 'em an' give 'em right /away/ then things like birthdays an' Christmas happens an' I don't got nothin'." "Well, I use the holidays to try and get through the worst of the dreary winter months. Kind of milestone reminders of how much time has passed and how much time remains." Melinda gives Jax a squeeze as she closes her eyes, enjoying it for a moment. "Gifts are useful because if I hunker down too much and ignore the people around me, it affects me, too. I have to share sometimes." She gives a little shrug. "That's just how I work though. I'm sure other people are different. Doesn't sound like you need the milestones as much." "Maybe not for present-giving but it's nice to mark /winter/ going away. The days don't never get longer fast enough for me." Jax's smile has tipped a little crooked. He pecks Mel on the cheek again, moving aside afterwards to pick his bucket back up. "S'it workin'? The holidays, I mean? S'it helped with the --" He waves his bag-laden hand towards the excessively /bright/ festive lights outside in the courtyard. "Drear?" "Kind of." Melinda admits. "This season is dead set on depression and I'm fighting with everything I can. Given the depth of the pit, I should be thrilled with the level of positivity I seem to be maintaining, but the relative position still feels kind of low." She clasps her hands onto the loops of her shopping bags and follows Jackson around slowly, watching him. "The lights are lovely. I sit in my window at night and watch them. Remembering the years past when Christmas felt like a decade and time went by more slowly. And everything felt safe." Jax's brow furrows, slowly. "/People/ seem dead set on depression," he replies slowly, "I ain't sure the season's got an agenda. Winter's always tougher, though. Just..." He trails off, shaking his head as he hops back down from the bed to start towards one side of the temporary greenhouse and tuck his bucket away into a corner. "Hive was so keen on the lights. /All/ the cheer -- what makes y'feel safe /now/?" "I don't know anymore. Being held is nice. Baths stand in for that. Watching Tola sleep sometimes helps, but that also gives opportunity for worry." Melinda considers quietly, turning her attention to the rest of the garden cum greenhouse. "Sometimes, not trying to sleep helps. It sounds counter productive, but trying to go to bed often leads to this relentless forward motion into each new day that ends up feeling unsettling. So staying up late with a cup of coffee and only drifting off when I feel like it? It's peaceful. How about you?" "Tola seems like she's been doin' good, though, ain't she?" Jax's teeth scrape against his lower lip. "Not that that ever really stops the worry. Guess I'm gonna be startin' that worry-path all /over/ again soon enough." His mouth hooks up, head shaking as he exhales a quick-bright laugh. "This time'a year I couldn't stay up if I wanted to. An' summer comes I couldn't /sleep/ if I wanted. S'pose I can see the appeal of grabbin' control of that cycle on your own terms." "And now I'm imagining you pregnant, Jax." Melinda shakes her head and smiles, considering briefly. "Tola's doing okay. She's still sluggish. She sleeps a lot, but eats in her sleep. When we get her warm enough and brightly lit, she crawls around like there's a fire in her diaper. I... am not too worried about her cognitive growth, with Hive around, but I guess I worry about next winter -- and what'll happen when he's gone." Jax blushes, deep, lifting a hand to scuff through his vivid-magenta hair. "Oh, gosh, I don't know as I'd last a -- I think of the two of us Micah'd be more like t'do the carryin'." His nose crinkles up, hair spilling down over his eye as his head bows. "Can relate t'/that/. I jus' nap in front'a my sunlamps half the days." The mention of Hive pulls his brows even closer together. "She'll be talkin' an' all by then. Have a whole lotta folk around for conversin' with, even after -- after." "I know. I keep telling myself that. They're just very close." Melinda reaches up a hand to tug at her braid, settling it more across the front of her shoulder rather than the back. "Anyway. Worries, you know. They're kind of demanding. Focusing on candle flame or the warm glow of light strands, maybe it's meditative. Focusing. Quieting. Relaxing. And seriously? Micah? Why do you say that? Don't like the idea of having an over large stomach? I'm sure you could pull it off." "Yeah. They're -- he's. Yeah. But she's /real/ young, she'll --" Jax's eye stays focused on the ground a moment. He lifts his head, shaking hair back off his face. "Because Micah's the one who /wants/ --" His blush burns deeper, head shaking this time in earnest rather than the previous functional gesture. The quirk of his mouth is slightly lopsided. "... anyway I'm /way/ more vain an' kinda more of a wimp. So." His cheeks are still red as he tucks a hand into his pocket, his other curling around the Lush bag. "I should get back in." He hefts the bag, offering Melinda a smile. "Thank you." Melinda smiles warmly and nods. "Well, okay. I wasn't trying to make you turn that red. Go ahead. I'll see you later. Do enjoy a warm bath with many shimmers, yeah?" She nods again and turns toward the courtyard, heading toward her home.