Monday, October 15, 2012

A Day in the Life: Gardening



Those of you who know me, know I love to garden. For me, it’s not a chore...well, most of the time its not. Pulling weeds is cathartic and has from time to time, has been inspiration for a story idea. I think because it’s fairly mindless. I mean if you know the difference between a weed and a flower, or just what you want growing where (some weeds are gorgeous) you don’t really have to think about what you’re doing. This quasi- comatose state is when most of my really good ideas have hit me. That or the shower/right before I fall asleep but that’s another post.

And I love to go out in the garden and watch the changing of the seasons by which flowers are blooming. For me, it’s an exquisite combination of pride and wonder.  I may have trimmed, weeded, fed and watered, but I didn’t create the plant or cause to it to grow.

At the risk of sounding like a kook, I think each plant has its own personality and after awhile they feel like old friends. This was my garden last year.

That’s why it’s hard to walk into my garden now. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I couldn’t go out there and weed. Then there was a newborn and now? 6 months of neglect means weeds as tall as my roses. There is almost as much grass in the flower beds as in the lawn. Everything is overgrown. There are more dead flowers on stems than live ones and my neighbor’s blackberries are once again threatening everything in the east bed.  That and I lost many container plants. Some of them old friends.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’ll regroup. This winter when everything is dormant, I can go out there and reclaim my garden. It was a choice I had to make. A hard choice but a choice. So this winter, if you like, you can follow me in the reclaim the garden marathon. I’m pretty sure it will take all winter. I will *gulp* take some pictures of now so we can track the progress.

Have you had to let something go recently? A hobby? Job? Pastime?

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