Give me this day my daily veg...

Nurturing My Nature

There's a song called 'Down The Mountain' by Robinella. I have it in my ipod and I don't really know how it came to be there. I mean, I know I bought it, I just wonder what perceived swan song I was singing to myself at the time, and on which lonely whisky night I was doing it. Regardless, I've been coming down that mountain for several years now. It started with a little meandering and then some unexpected slipping, I sat out a long, cold night in a blizzard and then pretty much decided I was done with the mountain. The trouble with heading down though, is that you don't really realize it's all that bad for a while. You still have a great view and you are actively headed in a direction. And it's all so much easier. Who needs to climb anything? You say to yourself. What's the point?

Maybe there is no point, like most things I say, I could be having an entirely selfish epiphany. However, I've decided that I do need to be scaling towards an inspired summit after all. I need a metaphorical one and I also want a physical one. I want to feel the strength of my own muscles pulling the weight of my body to a higher place, my will driving me forward in energized faith.

I've been out in the snow the last few days, surrounded by mountains I've yet to climb. But I've been breathing them in and making promises to myself. Perhaps I needed to come down the mountain just so I could get a good look at it, so I could understand the gift in the effort. There are parts of me that I encourage because they encourage others, and there are sides to me that need to show up in order to pay bills. But this - the mountain - it is my truest nature and it is completely, deliciously, my own.

 

 

The Door

 

We planted a door last weekend. Together. But he was sad and quiet and part of me knew why. We were working together in the spot he had made for us once, a place he had tried to create to take us out of destruction. And it had bloomed and grown full and beautiful.

As we tore out the rosemary, all woody and gnarled, I thought of the hope and joy that had thrived under his care. I was proud of him and grateful that I had stayed to see it, all those hazy days filled up with sunshine and hummingbirds. He stopped and stooped on his spade, a sigh hanging from every limb, his eyes filled up with tears. It has been hard work, taking apart something we spent so long putting together. And we have our moments when pain begs the question, why then?

The door catches the sunlight now over there in the back corner. I look out and smile at it - at us. It's not normal, and that's perfect, because neither are we. Neither is this whole strange life. The door says to me that there is another way, a chance to move on. And yet it sits alone in that circle of dirt, so there is no distinction between where it is you are coming from or going to. The garden is all around and we continue to be in it, together, no matter which side of the door you stand on. And when I stand at the threshold with my hand on the doorknob, I see the garden in front of me and I still see the reflection of the garden behind me.

He was sad with loss. Desolate with undoing. I told him we were not destroying something, we were making it better. And we are. A dead garden is more heartbreaking than no garden at all.

Cycles

No, not the ones with bells and brakes. I mean the round ones; like cyclones and circles, the ones that come back on themselves and begin over. Destined to repeat. To re-encounter. To relive.

I always thought that in order to live my best life and be my truest self, I had to constantly learn from my mistakes and figure out ways never to make them again. That to be happy and successful meant outrunning your regrets and dysfunctions. Putting enough space between your future triumphs and your past disasters. And that, to be healthy and wise and enlightened and content was a gift only bestowed upon you when you had finally, completely, stopped failing.

In the garden I allowed myself to be innocently disappointed by my efforts, based on the assumption that I would (of course) improve. I was only learning after all. Once I had mastered the basics and had a few notches in my spade, then I could start being hard on myself. But. Here's the thing about gardening that is so great, and that you just can't help taking out into the world with you. No matter what you do and how much you prepare, how much knowledge you have and how fastidious you are - Nature, to be honest, is a Bitch. You don't know what she's going to do next and you most definitely cannot control her. And those other times, when things go to plan and everything you pull up out of the ground is just beautiful and awe-inspiring, well, you can't really take credit for that either. 

And then, one January morning, you look out and see it. The Cycle. Like a strange dream it circles round and paints the garden in colors of last year. Of the year before that. The same plants sprout from the ground and you make yourself a plate of lettuce and radishes, because that is all that is growing. And you think, I've been here before. And although I am most certainly different, am I really any better? I am older, definitely, so perhaps wiser then by default. Contentment is easier to grasp - not because I have more, but because I am softer somewhere on the inside and can relax and stretch deeper for it. My heart still hurts the way it always did. But, the lettuce is here again, and the Garden is talking once more. And it is telling me that life is not a straight line, not a mountain to climb. That if life is a journey then it is one where we all walk in a big circle. One where we are who we are, and although we can prepare and strive and learn, ultimately we cannot control everything. And we fool ourselves when we attempt to take credit for greatness, because greatness is only transitory.

We join in. We contribute. Recycling ourselves our whole lives through. Reliving. Re-encountering. Reconnecting. Regenerating. 

And like lettuce in January,

 

there's not really anything wrong with that.

 

The Bleak Midwinter

It's not my favorite time. By any stretch of the imagination.

The air is cold and rigid, sawing into my bones and pressing vice-like against my ears. Mornings come late through the darkness and peek dimly around a barren winter scene. My mind races with chores and tasks that await me out there; me, the one to deliver change and life, to turn over soil and replant a new year. I lean heavy on my spade and breath in fear and let out hopelessness. Something about the frost and ice causes me to stumble, to doubt that anything will ever grow, will ever be fruitful again. The slow fracturing death of a winter's night that creeps in while I sleep.

And yet, in braveness I persevere to seek out the beauty I know exists. I stand in my pajamas and say to Winter, "Ok. This is who I am. And who are you? Why should I fear you or believe in the power of your destruction? Come July, let's see which one of us is still here."

And in my garden, the flowers stand with me. Wearing bitter frost like diamonds. Here, adorned by Winter's cruelest test, they are all the more spectacular.

 

 

 

So That Was Christmas.

 

You know the feeling of paralysis that comes from having too much to do or say? I've got it. So, as a toast to 2011 I'm going to shake it off and just let the pictures tell the story. I'll save my thoughts for the New Year and hopefully I'll make them all good.

 

When Gnomes Take a Vacation...

 

We've Been A-Wassailing!

I looked it up. Wikipedia says it's an ancient tradition of singing and drinking the health of the trees. Um...yup, that just about sums up the last two weeks. I've had Ella Fitzgerald's 'Santa Claus got stuck in my chimney' (snigger) bursting forth from my lungs at all hours of the day, and I've practically been swimming in gin. 'Tis the holidays after all. And I'm fresh out of illegal drugs.

Part of the reason for my absence is also the Gnomes' fault. You see, I decided to bestow an unprecedented kindness apon them by giving them Christmas off and so, the garden has lagged in production without their presence. Who cares? It's raining heavy sheets of chilly December wetness and all the fun is indoors this month. And because you missed it, here are a few shots of the tree lighting ceremony I had with the Gnomes. Because, as you know, I'm completely bonkers.

 

 

 

Bug Choy

 

This isn't just another glossy photo of some freshly harvested vegetables from the garden. This is step 4 of my organic cleaning system. It's about the time when I am huffing and puffing and thinking (shock! Horror!) about pesticides and wondering if being organic is idiotic. You see, before the soaking in the kitchen sink, there was the power hosing. That got rid of the really fat slugs hanging out between the leaves (hopefully). Then there was the peeling back of all the outer leaves to expose even more creepy (there's a reason they're called 'creepy') crawlies. Then I pretty much whacked the living daylights out of it with the clippers to knock off all the tiny worms. At this point, I'm thinking I know way too much about the inhabitants of this bak choy to find it at all appetizing. I take it inside and soak it all afternoon to coax out anyone I missed, and then I'll chop it really finely and rinse it through again just to be sure.

So. Much. Work.

I didn't know organic was going to be this personal. By taking out the pesticide middle man, I'm the one doing all the dirty work myself. Face to face with the concept that my food is actually a whole eco-system all initself. In actuality, I am getting my bak choy second hand - after something else has already had a taste. Now that is weird. And it makes me slightly uncomfortable.

And then I remember yesterday, sitting in a bar with David. We were eating delicious burgers and making fun of the lady who was complaining about her burger being too rare, that it was bleeding on her bun. We were having a great judgemental discussion about how folks don't want to know that meat was once alive. Um...Bingo. I'm a hypocrite. Vegetables are just plants after all. They are homes and snacks and boudoirs for any number of creatures and they grow in the dirt, not in plastic bags.

Organic is marketed so well in the grocery stores, segregated and elite. But the truth is that being organic means looking and seeing, learning and understanding. Accepting that life is the way it is and trying to figure out how you fit into that picture, not how you manipulate or control it. It's not clean and it's not pretty...but that doesn't mean it can't be super yummy and really freakin' good for you. 

The Broccoli is back in town

Popped right up under my nose and surprised me...

 

A bouquet of tiny green buds to congratulate me...

 

For enrolling in an Associate's Degree in Horticulture. Oh Yeah.

Classes start in February! 

A pea in the pod is worth two in the pumpkin patch

Before I the pumpkins were in, I had decided that big middle bed was going to be for the peas. I bought bamboo canes and erected swanky wigwams. I planted the peas and then I sat back and waited. And waited. After much thumb twiddling and staring at the unerupting dirt I quit on the peas. Plus, I needed a spare bed for my pumpkin experiment. That's what you get peas, for sleeping in and being coy.

The pumpkins went in and took over, you know the story, you've seen the pictures. And although all my ripening chi was flowing towards my biggest pumpkin, things slowed up a little because that crazy plant decided to make the bold move of fattening up a brother AND a sister for him. Now I have three and they are all almost ripe. Sigh. Oh, and did I mention we've been getting a frost at night? I'm going to be the only fool growing eskimo pumpkins. The last hard frost killed off the rest of the leaves on the plant, which is not really a bad thing. In fact, it allowed me to clear out all the debris and see the ground again. I was thinking I'd rework the dirt and have another attempt at growing peas.

If you listen very closely, you can hear my gasp of delight and surprise...

 

I guess some things we plant are growing all the while, even after we have forgotten about them or given up hope. The garden holds onto everything I ask of it, and reminds me every now and then that nothing we ever do is in vain.