"Take garden, not me."
This was the response to my request to photograph Emily, and while I wanted to have her in the shot, I respected her wish. So this is her garden, not her. And yet, it surely is both. She is there almost every time I arrive, working at a steady pace, knowledgeable, silent--yet smiling in greeting--and then working again.
She looked up once to ponder, I think, why I had stopped in the path near her plot for so long. I pointed to the white-crowned sparrow on the ground, trying to say with the gesture that I wanted to study it, wanted to get close to it and take its picture, wanted to hear it sing, wanted to approach it without frightening it into flight.
She nodded, but I have no idea what narrative she thought my outstretched, pointing finger contained.
I and the bird moved on. She put her head down and returned to her greens.
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