GardenZone

Quite often life inside the garden metaphorically mimics the evolution of our real-life’s script outside the garden as well. Failures, hopes, illness and recovery, chaos and calm, regrets, rewards and peace. All are acts in the dramas, comedies and tragedies performed each season on stages of soil and soul. Directing these transitional phases of garden life and real life is: Change. Authoring them is each of us. We choose that change which will facilitate the fading in and fading out of each act and keeps the story moving along to where the heroine rides off into the sunset (with a truckload of compost) or gets the guy (who’ll willingly do the grunt work without a single grunt); or sets the stage for a cliff-hanging sequel – “Gardening: The Never-ending Story”.

Remember that first week back to school when the teacher asked the class to write about what we did on our summer vacation?  Did we learn anything new?  Anything interesting?  Were we able to use anything we learned last semester?  Did we even remember anything from last semester?  Anything?  Hello?  Is anyone in there? 

I paused at the entrance to the massive structure, taking one last deep breath like a submerging deep-sea diver without oxygen tanks. A passing bumblebee’s wings created the only breeze. The sweltering heat made even shallow breathing difficult enough. It would be worse once inside. Maybe I could use those oxygen tanks, I thought. As I entered, I could feel heat from the crushed stone floor rise through the soles of my shoes. I had to pace my every move carefully, accomplish my mission and get the heck out of there as quickly as possible before I passed out. I remember playing back the theme from “Mission: Impossible” in my head as I headed towards my objective. In this atmosphere, I could very well self destruct in slightly more than ten seconds.

I must have stopped at that traffic light near the overgrown, corner lot hundreds of times, and there I was again. I’d been aware of the long-abandoned cottage since I moved to my home over twenty years ago. Nearly hidden behind a tight lattice of vines sinuously woven through arching forsythias and rambling rugosas at the edge of the road, it remained an enigmatic, melancholy reminder of once flourishing life and a caring inhabitant.

Back in the saddle again! Back to days of dirty fingernails, a sunburned neck, intensive reconnections with the earth...and intense pain!

The end of my first full week of gardening found me lying practically motionless on the couch with an ice pack on my right knee and another across the top of my left foot where my husband accidentally (or so he claims) dropped an iron mallet while pounding in a fence support. Painfully lifting my sore right arm (my digging arm) to adjust the cold compress on my forehead and with my other hand, struggling to reach the controls for the heating pad, radiating its soothing warmth to my lower back, but needing to be kicked up a notch, I froze when the calf muscle in my left leg began its convulsive dance.

"The thing with feathers which perches in one's soul;
And sings the tune, without the words and never stops at all" - Emily Dickinson

Hope, it is said, Springs eternal. As days grow longer, warmer and when finally day and night share equal length, the vernal equinox once again tickles the hearts and souls of gardeners with feathers of hope.

We sow our seeds, coddle our transplants and with childlike impatience, mark time till our favorite nursery reopens. All in the hope that this year the roses evade blackspot, or larval broods of loopers weave their lacy patterns on trap crops instead of our broccoli. Or drought doesn't desiccate, nor rains rot and deer just look.

I'm a rather solitary gardener. When I moved to my present house about 20 years ago, I'm sure my new neighbors thought me quite the snob or just plain unsociable.

I was always preoccupied with gardening chores. Sandy ground, which passed for soil, required weekly trips to the town's compost facility as I'd yet to establish a pile of my own, bed designs awaited deployment, and once planting began, the demands of my garden became paramount and daily. With head down, on hands and knees or in the proverbial gardener's pose (bent at the waist and butt in the air) or just lost in thoughts while weeding planting, pruning or turning the newly established compost pile, there just never seemed to be any time to chat. Rushing to water this, apply shade cloth to that, or lying in wait with coffee can and lid in hand to catch and release yet another vole from the hole where once grew a plant, I admit to purposely avoiding conversations with neighbors. My gardener's brain calculated each moment spent talking equated to one less transplanted perennial or one more vulnerable seedling quivering,unprotected, without its cutworm collar. At times, I felt unable to offer a mere quick wave in response to my neighbor's " Good morning" , and the thought of one of them offering to tag along as I went about my chores sent shivers down my spine.

Somewhere. Out there. Beyond my frosted window panes. Lies my garden.

My breath leaves cloudy circles on the kitchen window as I press my nose against the cool glass and scan the crystalline landscape of freshly fallen snow for signs of life. I can easily make out trails of squirrels' feet, the tiny hash marks of birds' claws, long oval rabbit tracks every foot or so, and the deeper impressions of deer's' cloven hooves. Underneath that thick white blanket, the curves, pathways, borders, dormant perennials and entire structure of my garden lies hidden. Hidden to others, yet in my mind's eye, it's as clear as the sparkling stalactites precariously dangling from the gutters of my house.

Hey! Wake up!

What the heck do you think you're doing dozing in that comfy lounge chair, snuggled in a warm afghan, toasting your fuzzy-slippered tootsies in front of that fireplace, one hand wrapped around a steaming mug of hot cocoa, while the other pets the cat or dog...or both? Of course you deserve a little respite from the hectic holidays. Sure, you want to hibernate from the howling winds blowing drifts of snow blockading the front door, while you remain safely ensconced in your protective cocoon. Exerting only enough energy to grab that next novel or ball more yarn for yet another afghan.

Adorned in ribbons and fancy paper. Wrapped in newspaper and tied with twine. Stamped "Fragile" and left by the postman. Or stuffed in a brown paper bag and hand delivered. Gifts given and received in all shapes, sizes and sentiment at this Holiday time of year are all special. It's taken a personal tragedy in my life this year, to reinforce my perception of true gifts, and none of them come wrapped or hand delivered. They're intangible, priceless and precious gifts only appreciated or "opened" when you allow your mind and heart to avert your vision.

As you gaze up at the night sky to locate a distant constellation; or stand in a field of red poppies trying to spy a single bluebonnet; or search for the face of your child amidst other apple-cheeked first graders in the school's Holiday choir......that's when you must avert your vision. You have to open your eyes ...wide... and take in the entire picture. Then, almost miraculously and unexpectedly, that which you seek stands out. Becomes clear and distinct.