How My Garden Grows
Mammoth Sunflower photo by David P. Rogers
Now I only have 45 minutes.
I’ve been staring at the screen for fifteen.
Maybe I’ll decorate some eggs this year.
It’s another grey day. Like living under a dome.
I’m looking forward to more Spring-like weather, even though I don’t think I’m going to do as much gardening this year. I’m always pretty motivated early on but by the end of the season I have a lot of overgrown, blight-covered, groundhog-eaten tomatoes that end up dying on the vine. I guess the tomatoes don’t mind if they get eaten, or die on the vine. They just grow until they can’t.
The same pattern happens when I write. I start off strong, but my inner critic starts to get louder and more convincing. Everything I write seems trite and inconsequential.
Sometimes life is trite and inconsequential.
But you have to keep going. Even if it seems like you’re taking the scenic route.
I’m sure people with mobility issues hate having to go to the special entrance or take the virtual labyrinth of the wheelchair accessible ramp. I have a disability. I may, at the moment, be mobile but I know from taking care of Mom that everything changes. I may have to take the "wheelchair accessible entrance to life", but I need to remember I’m lucky to be able to get in at all.
A garden grows, as you tend it, but even the best tended gardens can still be felled by infestation and disease. That’s just how the gardens grow.
Life is similar. You can have the best education, family, and social life, like rich soil, plentiful water and abundant sunlight, but at any time it can all get blighted. You could lose your mobility, or your sanity. Or your life.
This year I’m helping Mom to garden. Since she’s regained her mobility (and I assembled the raised flower bed a few years ago), she can plant some seeds. It’s time for me to step back and watch someone else get inspired by the garden, and simultaneously inspire myself.
6 minutes left.
