It won’t be long before I start the garden up again in my courtyard. In the meantime, I have to wait for Spring to become entirely official. That’s usually after Mother’s Day here in Illinois because we tend to get at least one more overnight frost between March and May.

My courtyard is fairly scuzzy.  It’s a giant concrete pad that’s all busted up, with many slipshod repairs to the concrete that make it look even worse than it is.

My mom and I work to make it less slum-like by planting as much as we can in beds and pots. By late June, when plants are really green and growing, my neighbors gather outside and grill and entertain. But right now, it looks really, really sad back there. If only it would look half as spooky/creepy as the decrepit grounds in Grey Gardens.  Maybe I wouldn’t be so depressed about not being able to start on the garden right now.

I would then put on an old fur and a sweater wrapped around my head and stand there like Little Edie. Who’s she? She “stars in” a 1975 documentary film called Grey Gardens. It is at once funny, sad, sublime and complicated.  It’s possible that everyone has seen it, but now that there’s a new movie coming out that dramatizes the original Grey Gardens, I think you better rush out and see this amazing film about these women.

The documentary captures the daily life of Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith ‘Little Edie’ Bouvier Beale, relatives of our former first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Big Edie and Little Edie live in a run-down mansion in the East Hamptons where they’ve created their own world of delusion and dysfunction among the raccoons that live in their attic. I’m telling you, this movie is incredibly compelling.

Promise me you’ll see it before the new Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymoore vehicle comes out. I have my doubts about the new movie and frankly, I can’t help but wonder why they’re bothering to do a dramatic remake of such an oddly wonderful piece of work.  Grey Gardens is a must see! Matter of fact, if you don’t see it, “I’ll PUSH YOU under the bed!”