Gardening is good for the soul. Even in the midst of a deep depression, just sinking my fingers into the damp dirt would do wonders for me. It was healing and transformational. I worked for a garden center prior to my current career and it was one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had. I put in my time to become a Travis County Master Gardener and went on to study and get my certification to be a Texas Nursery and Landscape Professional. It became an obsession. I bought and devoured every book on Central Texas gardening, poured over every beautiful plant that was trucked in and unloaded into the garden center and I probably bought every single variety of plant over the 5 years I worked there.
I had a beautiful garden in the early years. It was carefully tended with the richest, deep soil amended with my own homemade compost. I was a hippie chick who recycled before recycling was normalized. I grew big fat tomatoes, as well as peppers, cantaloupes, squash, cucumbers, and an assortment of herbs. I babied my veggies and there was nary a weed to be found. Perennials were my favorite type of plant and I lived by the saying that if you could garden in Central Texas, you could garden anywhere on earth.
I inherited a 20 x 20 fenced in garden when I bought my current home almost 20 years ago. It had a rain water collection system that tapped right into the drip irrigation and I couldn’t wait until the last projected frost date to pass so I could start getting my nails dirty. In March I would till up the 400 square feet of weedy left over mess from the fall before, add healthy nutrient rich compost, create the mounds where the plants would go, buy my little 4” vegetable plants in assorted varieties, dig holes not too deep and not too shallow, add weed repelling fabric with cutouts just big enough to allow the plant to peek through, and then finally, I’d add mulch around the base and water faithfully as needed. Every day I couldn’t wait to get out to the garden to see what might await. My garden was my therapy and the days gave way to weeks and the warm weather became hot. I didn’t mind though, because the more I tended my garden, the more it gave back in return. Give and take. Ebb and flow. Reap and sow.
Years went by and children grew up and I became busy and life went on. My garden became a long lost friend but every March or April I would have great intentions and even buy a few little plants, I’d plop them in last year’s soil and pull a few weeds in and around the immediate plant but right around May, I would tire of the weeds that the spring rains would encourage, I’d get exhausted from leaning over with my hands in the dirt, under the Texas scorching sun and little by little, I would stop tending my garden and I had little to show for it. I handed it over to my more impassioned neighbor.
The aforementioned story is really a story about my failed first marriage. I had an initial passion for the man who became the father of my children. We doted and fawned, we nurtured and loved deeply. We yielded a great harvest. Until we didn’t. Over time we thought we could just stop making the effort and we stopped tending to each other’s needs, stopped making time to enjoy the sunshine, stopped weeding out the unlovely parts and sat back waiting for the harvest when there was nothing but an empty patch of dirt to look upon. We had reaped what we had sown. I own up to this and know in my heart I could have done better. I am grateful however for the life lessons I’ve learned and what I can offer others as a result. I am grateful to still call him a friend and grateful for the father he remains.
It is so easy and natural to fall in love with a beautiful face and eyes that see into your very being, to ride the thrill that is inexorable joy in dating. It is pleasurable and rewarding to tend a giving heart that wants to see you happy. As the weeks turn into months and the months into years and work beckons and stress comes at inconvenient times, the need for “working the soil” becomes harder to do. But that’s when it’s most important to not give up.
I was given a second chance at love and marriage 17 years ago and it was with the first example in mind, that I determined to understand where the fault lay, how to be a better partner and how to advocate for healthy marriages. The key is to prepare for the rains, knowing they WILL come.
There really is a season for everything. There are seasons of loveliness and plenty, of tenderness and giving, of passion and zest. The days will seem short and you can’t wait to be in the arms of the one who understands you best. Those are often followed by seasons of impatience and selfishness, of short tempers and long weeks. But the farmer who truly relishes the garden over his or her own pleasures will always come back with self-sacrifice, hard work and commitment knowing that the years have staying power, the minutes in between are fleeting. Laziness will never grow a healthy garden. You must stay the distance, run the race set out before you, expect that the rains will come, expect that you will get weary but know that the sun will always come out again in the morning. Build up the reserves so that when it’s gloomy outside, there’s cuddling to be done to wait out the storm.
The successful gardener knows when to tend and when to be tended to. She knows to keep working the soil even when it’s hot outside. He knows that in order to make it to harvest, he must never give up on the seeds just under the soil. Ever loving. Ever tending. Ever forgiving. Fall back. Spring forward. Year over year.
The one thing missing from this analogy is mother earth. God supplied us with the heart and the soul and the mind and the strength. He created the cool winds, the warm rays of sun and the bounty that comes with perseverance. Without the rain from above, even the native xeriscape plants will die from neglect. You were born to need Him. Grace and mercy are the additives to everything under heaven.
Even a tired garden is not beyond repair. Even soil long since abandoned can bring forth life from long buried seeds if given some tender and loving cultivation, a sprinkle of water and quiet prayer. Such is the waiting heart.
Enjoy the passion of today. Keep it strong for tomorrow. A tender kiss is good for the soul, too.
Peace,
Elaine
