Greetings, dear readers. It’s a relaxed Tuesday evening and I’m enjoying the little quiet spot between sunset and lights-out. These are the longest days of the year, giving me lots of daylight to get outside with the dogs and to get into the garden.
The garden is on my mind these days. There’s a phrase that plays like a refrain in my thoughts: Grow where you’re planted.
Parsing the meaning reveals layers of meaning for me. It can mean “make the best of where you are”. It can mean “cultivate something where you are”. It can mean “get rooted and celebrate it”. All of that resonates for me right now. As you patient readers know, I have been on a campaign to put my house in order, working through various forms of disarray to create a better place to cultivate a better life. Cultivation requires care, food, water, and – yes, I am now fully aware – pruning. [D’you hear that – last year’s holiday catalogs???]
I am also looking to sit better in this place where I’ve lived for more than 20 years. It is sometimes an itchy fit. But it’s getting better. My neighbor and I recently engaged in a fortuitous exchange of plant seedlings. I found a home for an astonishing excess of tomato seedlings (Baker Creek seeds are quite amazing) and she returned the favor with sturdy cucumber, squash and banana peppers in tiny pots. They’re now replanted and thriving, along with neighborly good will. This is sweet and really does sink my roots a little deeper here.
There is something exquisitely pleasing about planting a seedling and seeing it thrive. Watching day by day as small leaves grow bigger, seeing the stem thicken and then pop out flower buds way earlier than you thought possible. There is a deep satisfaction in the getting a whiff of the tangy scent of tomato leaves while you water, and seeing them stand tall and straight. It’s partly the food that will come from your own hand and your own soil. It’s also the alchemy that turns dirt, water, and sunshine into food, with just a little sweat equity.
Maybe the thought I’m seeking is that putting the same equity into relationships would yield similar grace to the table. Not a bad lesson to carry into the summer growing season.
Wishing you all good green and growing things.
Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! As always, your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!
My new story collection is now available: Dog Days . I’d love to hear your thoughts if you check it out!
I can’t say I’ve come up with any grand scheme of anything. It’s more like making soup than inventing the lightbulb. A whole bunch of stuff went into it, more gets thrown in here and there, it’s all stirring around and it hasn’t quite melded into any one entity yet. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. This mix is a bit unpredictable.
I wouldn’t be able to see them nectaring if I hadn’t gone out and done some serious cleaning up in the garden. A tall local weed was threatening to take over my pollinator garden and I needed to cut it back so that my flowers could grow freely. I got out there with my favorite pruners and went to town! Within minutes of coming back in, there were butterflies at the buffet. That’s a good feeling.
afternoon when we would have a fresh cup and start conferring about dinner. Dad loved black coffee and the smell of something delicious cooking on the stove, or – even better – on the grill. Me, too. I am still and ever Daddy’s girl.
came across this beautiful, newly emerged Spicebush Swallowtail. It was still pumping its wings, which had almost no mark on them, the powdery blue-green shining as if it was polished. His pretty tails were still intact and every white spot was pristine. He tapped his feet on the stem he was crawling on, as if testing its firmness. He was entirely lovely.
planted”? There are many blooms where I’m planted right now. Every spring is an invitation to watch the lovely progression of branch to leaf to flower to fruit, a slow wave in a rolling ocean of life. I am blessed to live where spring flowers give rise to summer fruit – the wild roses hold hands with wild blackberries, one giving rise to a soft, sweet scent and the other to treats for the birds and, if I’m quick enough, for me. Butterflies and moths remind me to hold beautiful things lightly, and then my funny little Chiquita reminds me to pay attention to a happy dog, because she’s going to roll in something I don’t want tracked into the house… She is hilarious.
In another way – this is sooo NOT my comfort zone. I’m away from the fur fam and I always miss them. Nothing is familiar and my old routines often don’t fit. And I end up in some situations that I really wouldn’t volunteer for. Drive up windy unpaved canyon roads with unprotected drop-offs? Seriously? No thanks… Definitely not my comfort zone. But I’ve done it three times in two days.
ogwood, blooming in full measure, even just a few yards from a construction site.
heresaquarter 