Since gardening has always been an exercise in grounding, I was focusing on the seasons, their relevance to me, and the metaphors I could use when gardening in tune with the universe. But, when I focus on one thing too long, I get bored and … well, I find something else to do. I checked into Facebook – my biggest procrastination tool … from studying, writing, mothering and general maintenance – and saw this apt quote from my other procrastination tool, Sex and the City:
“After all, seasons change. So do cities. People come into your life and people go. But it’s comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away.”
Apt on many levels but, for the purpose of this post, simply because even when I am looking for other things to take my attention off the task at hand, my procrastination tools send me right back to where I was originally … in this case, the changing seasons.
When I had a new baby in the house, I had no idea what to do with him. I read all the books, I followed formulas, I had a strict routine and if he cried when he was meant to be sleeping, I often just went out into the garden to sink my hands deep into the soil and dig, plant and weed … knowing he might well still be crying but not knowing what to do about it. In fact I pretty much avoided the maternal side of motherhood for the first couple of years, choosing – in-between consulting jobs and studies – to rather garden or dig drains or lay stones and stumps – anything in fact! – to avoid having to deal with it from anything apart from the theoretical sense. I thought I would appear self-indulgent if I did the ‘normal’ mumsy things with my baby. I thought it would look like I’d gone soft.
That’s all changed – Obviously – but when I go back there in my mind, it stings. Real Bad. The upside is he fell into a sleep routine pretty quickly and my not knowing what to do with him when he was awake meant he got to hear the Economist Magazine read out loud to him daily – there’s possibly good reason his first coherent mutterings were ‘buggerbuggerbugger’. The downside is I now regard the garden as my ‘guilty place’ and I just don’t work in it anymore.
Still having a need for grounding when going through watersheds, my attention goes instead to the metaphorical garden of the universe. When processing anything, I shrug off the burden of self-indulgent guilt and I sink my hands deep into the fertile soil of my very own self-awareness where I dig and I plant and I weed. I metaphorically garden now in the way that I should have practically mothered then – free of guilt and boundaries. It’s damn hard work sometimes but the seeds must go in before the seasons change … and the seasons, they do always change.
A more appropriate quote for this post would surely be the one by Robert Louis Stevenson:
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”
I can now see this most recent season for what it was. It was a season for tilling and planting when all the while I was trying to harvest. I have now had the space to really turn the soil. I see the work that needs to be done and I know what crops need to be planted. Seasons change and change can often be brutal. But we only know the spring through its contrast to the winter.
My hands feel good where they are – warm and deep in the compost. The sun has pressed its kiss to my cheek and my labour has made me strong. But there’s plenty of planting still to be done. Where the flowers grow, so too will there be weeds … but both will know their purpose in their contrast to the other and all will be magnificent. And when the garden is grown and tended just right, I can just sit there a while and appreciate the beauty of my labour.
I can’t help but end with a final quote, one of my favourites by the Buddha, which sums up what’s sure to come:
“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
Indeed. I have no doubt I will.
