It's all a bang in July!
Garden Stories
Mid-Summer Life Lessons (aka: new learnings and reminders from the garden)
Anyone who is a serious hobbyist of anything believes that their hobby, singularly, provides the best life lessons. Ask a serious golfer or tennis player, and you are sure to hear some life analogy about the swing of the club or racket against the wind, and once contact is made with the ball, all you can do is follow through and watch where it may land. Your part being over until you meet the ball again. Then there are the baseball analogies to life. I’m not particularly sure what they are. I would theorize that being bored between hits and runs, is just like being bored in life….inevitable. Because I, and most of you, are gardeners we’ve extracted a myriad of lessons from our personal beautification project. Here are some of the new lessons and gentle reminders I’ve learned so far this summer. You need not be a gardener to appreciate them...
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Keys to Gardening in the Heat (aka: summer gardening survival methods 101}
"It goes without saying that it’s cooler in the morning than the afternoon. Presumably that is when we should all be gardening. But cool is a relative term. Eighty-five degrees with fifty percent humidity at 7:00 am in South Carolina is not cool to me."
Ah, summer! Such an enjoyable time of…. Okay. I am not a summer person. It took me forty plus years to admit that. I only got the confessional courage recently from a podcaster whom said it without any hesitation {thank you Elsie!}. Call me odd, but I much prefer my outdoors less oven temperature and more climate controlled, like a wine refrigerator. But for some, it’s a delightful time of year. Sun blazing down, transforming lush gardens into arid landscapes reminiscent of the Sahara Desert, and tight skinned bodies into rough wrinkled leather sofas.
"I'm fifty-two love!"
"Oh that can't be!" I think you mean seventy-two. "You don't look a day over forty-five."
Therefore, this season can be a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s prime growing time. On the other, it’s hotter than a jalapeño’s armpit. But garden we must, mustn’t we?
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The Dandelion Sutra (aka: how a peaceful yoga class turned into a garden rant)
I’ve been a yogi for a very long time. I attended my first yoga class when I was about twenty-seven years old. Now, twenty-three years later I can safely say it will be a life long practice for me. This is because I know it has the ability to support and guide me through various stages and changes of my life. Therefore, I think very highly of the practice. And the teachers… until I don’t.
In my twenties yoga was about spiritual connection and inner reflection. I was terribly unhappy working at my law firm {one of many disappointing legal career experiences}. My personal trainer at the time {who in retrospect new much to much about me}, suggested I attend yoga. I did. That first class was anything but newsworthy. I didn’t understand the chants {meaning I verbally could not mimic the chants because my ears were not accustomed to hearing the language}. I could barely do any of the poses. I thought I would die of overheat {and this was the time before “hot” yoga was a thing}, and overexertion. For some odd reason I cried through the whole thing in the corner {they say Yoga wrings out negative emotion}. But I showed up again the next day, and the next. I think I was impelled on by something greater than me. But I was also very motivated by my teacher’s devotion, knowledge and energy. By the time I met my husband two years later, I had a 1 1/2 hour six day a week practice {Monday through Saturday of Iyengar based flow and Astanga Primary Series}. I had cleared out my mental crap, reversed my mental and environmental unhappiness, and connected with my god.
In my late thirties and through most of my forties I substituted my yoga hours for ballroom dancing and then ballet {something I had briefly taken when I was a little girl and hated with a passion because my flat feet really hurt}. Dancing was something I longed to do in a very structured and committed way. When I did attend a yoga class....
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Free Snippers (aka: the lost art of botanical heists)
"Free snippers {as I like to call us, are much like the rock climbers in the movie Free Solo} are on the look out for something to snip all the time. Another conquest. No matter the degree of danger."
There are two things gardeners and those who love them should know about {other} gardeners. One is an open secret, that is flouted on television shows and in magazines under the guise of creativity, ingenuity and design. While the other is a rarely talked about lost art.
The open secret is this; all gardeners are scavengers. They call it collecting {because let’s face it, we live in classist societies and what else do middle and upper class people do, but collect. The poorer masses scavenge}. Despite one’s income bracket, how one might justify their classism and rephrase their rummaging, it still involves cast offs; allies; garbage bins; thrift shops; mad dashes; and bouts of memory loss as to an item’s original origin. But this open secret is for another essay.
There is the lost art. The gardeners who engage in it, live amongst us and in the shadows simultaneously. At least now. This is where the gardener is a true life character from a spy novel. She sees a target. Sometimes the object of her interest has been purposely sought, like the plot from a John le Carré novel. But other times the quarry is a “crime” of opportunity executed flawlessly {like “pure jazz” ....
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A Reason to be Amongst the Plants (aka: gardens are for breathing)
I’ve lived enough life to know, that human life is a beautiful mess full of contradictions. At its best it is fun. Joyful. Colorful. Adventurous. Delightful. Full of great surprises. Peaceful. Awe inspiring. Pleasant. Friendly. Beautiful. And full of love. However, it can also be chaotic. Deafening. Judgmental. Fear inducing. Heartbreaking. Disappointing. Frustrating. Devastatingly shocking. And one giant woodshed {as in being “taken to”}. All that life is-its circumstances, can over run the thoughts of our minds {particularly the negative bits, since years of evolution have conditioned the human brain to focus on the negative for survival}. Just when the amygdala…a small, almond-shaped {and comparatively sized} structure inside of the brain believes it will have its way with our 100+ lbs structures-we can step outside.
Gardening: whatever it is you...
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April brings May Flowers and Questions about Garden Fitness Levels (aka: spring training for gardeners is in order)
There is nothing like the beginning of gardening season to make you feel your fitness level...In U.S parlance the latter sentence would translate to:
“There is nothing like the beginning of gardening season to make you feel old.” But I don’t want to go there. Because it’s not true. Unbeknownst to many {unless you are a Blue Zone’s Dan Buettner devotee} , gardening is one of the many ingredients to live a long, healthy, high-quality life. Regardless, May for most gardeners {unless it’s your full time profession} is like regular season baseball without the spring training and pre-season/exhibition games {my husband will be so proud of my reference to his favorite spectator sport which I dislike greatly. Does a game really need to last as long as child birth without all the fun? “No” is the answer}.
April fades and May presents itself wrapped in sun, warmth and color. Very much unlike a professional athlete, we all just go right outside...
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