What My Gardens Teach Me

Well... aside from teaching me that I am a very intense person attracted to working unrealistically hard. But this post is about the *magical* stuff gardens teach me.

I have been working really a lot and my time in my gardens has been deeply constricted. There are actually days I don’t get to do a spin around. I usually take laps in the garden 3, 4, 7, 11? times a day. But I am commuting north a lot of days and it’s cutting out my MeanderTime (™).

I kind of missed the peonies this year (also because I was adoring my iris, careful viewers will note). I did stop and look and take a few photos and note that I have two that will need to be moved in late fall because they are being crowded out my the now-mammoth mock orange. But I didn’t stop and smell them. Or bring any inside.

So I have a crazy deadline at work and there is nothing like pressure that will find me procrastinating. Thanks to physical therapy this morning (back is not enjoying my current work vibe) I found myself at home and not rushing to get in car.

And though most of the peonies are denuded, their petals all fallen to the ground in a disarray (that always makes me think of Morning Afters from NYC early days, party goods strewn about, signs that good times were had, joy detritus), way in the shade of the mock orange I found one small blossom that hadn’t yet dropped. And I plucked it.

Then walked around the garden looking at everything else with it pressed to my nose like a respirator (see photo 2). I am huffing it still, as I type this, since it is now floating in a bowl in my living room. Flawless and simple and perfect. Not like life, which is rarely those things. But for me, the plants are the reminder. We can’t always reshuffle our decks to embrace simplicity. But we can at least remember that that is a goal we value (if we value that) and that just being present for a moment pays dividends into our hearts, and tells that noisy mind of ours to just chill for a sec.

. . .

Previously published on Facebook. But FY Facebook. You can’t have the best of my writing. And so, here I am, claiming it as mine, claiming it to share.