The view out the kitchen window reveals that the garden seems to have blown itself up...like a self inflating balloon...like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And this, seemingly over night. Everything is fat and green with spots of flowers of pink, white, red-orange, yellow, etc. I am at that sweet spot of garden life, where I can tread the paths and think in peace "This needs a little weeding...this needs a little pruning...time to pull these out...time to put something different in here," as opposed to "Aaaaaaaaargh!! I'm buried in weeds!" The Japanese beetles have dwindled (I did kill a BUNCH,) and seeds planted seem to be responding to the warmth and water. Don't think I haven't thought how this can apply to the rest of life(you weren't thinking that, were you?). I'm struggling emotionally right now, and I can't understand why, when all seems to be going well. I should be in the sweet spot of life, when things just need small adjustments--the major tasks are behind me and I've walked a road with sufficient obstacles and traumas. And of course, as in the garden, so in life, the weeds are waiting, waiting, to sprout forth and overwhelm me again. So why so downcast, oh my soul? I only have one theory, and it could be so so wrong. But maybe the little adjustments are the hardest. Maybe having the time to consider the details also brings the time to review and condemn, to examine the failures and have time for disappointment. I like to think this is only because we strive for perfection--a garden without weeds, bursting forth with aesthetic and nutritional value, so that the necessary adjustments now seem like an affront to our efforts. It also underscores the longing we all have, to live in the beauty, to be enfolded in the glory of the Creator's arms. We stretch out on our tippy-toes to attain to it here--our hearts and our souls cry out to live in that place--but we are still being formed for it: a long, often arduous process. So we can only look forward, and be grateful for the productivity of the garden as it is, and for the promise of future weeds with which to contend.
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Today, being Tuesday, is dump-the-rain-gauge day. The intent is to insure that every week there is at least one inch of rain on the garden. I expected at least that much as I went to the gauge, but the float had not moved, even a fraction of an inch. That was particularly surprising because yesterday it rained. It dumped big full buckets of rain for at least fifteen minutes, then paused, caught its breath and dumped some more. It was astounding, dramatic, and enticing. Only, I was viewing it all out a window some 14 miles away from home where I was attending a meeting and I could only stay seated and glance toward the deluge and try to keep my mouth from flopping open and embarrassing myself. Imagine my surprise, then, when today I shake the rain gauge upside-down and find naught but an old drip or two. I had given thanks yesterday that the rain came to water the garden. Today I irrigated. Is it proper to rescind a prayer of thanksgiving? (Well, she thinks, fists tight and planted on her hips, thanks! Thanks a lot. Seems rude. Is rude). And now I think perhaps assuming my garden was being watered at the same time was a tad presumptuous. It made me think, "for it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous alike", though I'm not sure in context which would be righteous and which not--my garden or me. But, since it is a very bad paraphrase, I had to look up what the red-letters actually say: "For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." And this is nestled in the section of the book of Matthew referring to how we treat one another. I always thought the verse was about how God blesses and provides for all, no matter how churlish or depraved, but had not thought about how we are called to do the same thing. If He is our model and guide, and we are to be as He is ("Be ye holy, as I am holy."), then we must also send rain on the just and the unjust, and shine on the evil and on the good. "As though he did not regard human character at all, God bids his sun shine on good and bad. As though he did not know that any men were vile, he bids the shower descend on the just and unjust..." Charles Spurgeon As though He did not know!! He does know, and we do know. But our behavior towards others is to be such that we seem not to know. And no matter what, we keep on shining, we keep on raining... The bane of my garden life are the uninvited plants, of course. I have been hand plucking for what feels like decades--centuries!--and nothing seems to improve the situation. I have carefully dug each and every plant out, "chopped" with a weeding tool recommended by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and guerrilla weeded, pulling at random in fly by manner, I have done everything short of poisoning or burning. There are three things I carry with me from my youth that I know I will never do exactly right, because these are the three things I never got right under the tutelage of my parents. These are: Washing the car (You are leaving streaks!!) Ironing (Can't you do anything right?!), and Weeding I hear my father's voice when I weed: "Get out all the root!!" He could be thoroughly ashamed to see me now, pulling and tearing and randomly plucking. But he couldn't know what I would be up against. We lived in a drier clime, not this jungle where things spring up overnight. Here, everything gets watered frequently from the sky and where there's water there's life--great green batches of it whether you want it or not. To get out every root could be my full time job, my calling, my life. Do I want that? No.... So I invested in a weeding tool from one of the myriad garden catalogs I receive (they've found me!--they've all found me!!) It feels like treachery, betrayal, even blasphemy to use it, since I'm not abiding by the family dictum to get out every last bit of root. But I love it. I weeded the beds this week in 1/3 the time. The veggie plants are happy, I'm happy--what's not to like? I have turned my back on family dictum in the garden. Now if only I could stop ironing wrinkles into my clothes... There is a bird outside my window in the mornings this spring that sounds like the screaming strings in the movie Psycho. It's the exact same pitch. Exact same cadence. Graciously, the bird vocalizes more intermittently than the strings in the movie sound track. And he usually stops before I get up to take my shower. That is a great mercy. At other times, other seasons, there has been a bird that would cry out "Pretty, pretty, pretty," repeatedly. I chose to take this personally and accept the bird's estimation of me. What better way to wake up in the morning than to have someone insist that you are pretty, pretty, pretty, even with mussy hair and pillow-case creases along your cheeks. No matter what they screech or sing at me, I am honored to welcome them into my garden, and I am blessed to provide what I can for them. The Garden Birds seem to expect their due, picking through seeds in the bird feeder like a shopper at a Black Friday sale, swinging hard on the suet holder until it crashes down and they can all pick at the crumbs on the bench, even swinging at our bedroom window to give it a good sharp knock when the feeder is empty. Yet they flee when I approach. Deep down I feel they must know I'm their provider, or at least deeply involved in their provision. They must see me working--no toiling--in the garden to create a green haven with abundant perches, a variety of snacks, and a fresh source of water. Nonetheless, they still don't trust me, and I fear my dream of living like Cinderella in a Disney film, with birds, squirrels, bunnies, et al garlanding me and singing harmony to my morning praises will never come to pass. I have a choice to clench my hands on my hips and tap my foot and accuse these little ones of ingratitude, or I can keep giving, and take joy in their enjoyment. I choose the latter. I still tsk at their selfishness, as they chase each other off the feeders or out of the water, but laugh, too, at these displays of very human-like characteristics. I love that they can be themselves in my presence and just make themselves at home, and reflect the nature of life in the world. But I still choose which bird I listen to in the morning, not taking seriously the one that screeches and momentarily puts me off my shower, but listening rather to the one that calls me pretty, and insists it is so. It sets a better tone for the day... Last Friday was the day of preparation for Pesach. I spent much time in the kitchen and decrying the fact that the horseradish I intend to grow in the garden hadn't even arrived from the nursery yet. (When the horseradish came, and all the other accompanying perennials, I was certainly underprepared to get 50 plus plants into the ground--but that's another story.) All day we received tornado warnings on our phones. But we've received those before, and never did a tornado darken our paths. The family went north to go ice skating. I took a walk in the forest with my d.i.l. and granddaughter. We were all out in the world and vulnerable when eight tornadoes (so they say) touched down around us to the west and north west, within a mere couple of miles and skipping over our immediate vicinity. We had no rain, no wind, no sound of a speeding locomotive. Just the dark heavy sky, lower than I've ever seen. We scoffed at tornado warnings. We mocked wussy locals who skitter into hiding at the slightest threat of "weather." But we will be more attentive next time, I assure you. Our sense of safety and well-being was rooted in the familiar. The air was soft and pliant, the sky dark, but unmoving. Yet when two types of air(warm and moist in the lower atmosphere, cooler in the upper) meet and their relationship becomes unstable, the inherent power hidden within the meekness of mere air can become staggering. "People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time," it was said of Aslan. To a certain degree everything has a touch of each, especially if we are to experience to any degree the beauty, power and, yes, holiness, of creation and creation's God. Yes, tornadoes are made of sky, and the sky is most often beautiful...and without air there is no life. Yet, even air, invisible, ubiquitous, can rumble with a power that confirms how small we really are.
Tuesday’s child is full of woe. Or so the saying goes. I was born on a Tuesday. Or so I’m told. But I was a happy child and always wondered why I was supposed to be full of woe. I figured I could fulfill the expectation, and be a true child of Tuesday, or I could fight and choose to be woe-less. I can’t say I’ve always been successful choosing woe-less-ness, but it has always been my intent.
Tuesday is the day in the garden that I dump the rain gauge, unclipping it from its bracket, and tossing the water over the fence. The gauge allows me to know if the garden has had enough water for the week. It seems a minimally important priority in such a wet climate, and I count on one hand the times I’ve had to back up the heavens with my hose, but it is nice to keep track of the rainfall. And to have a ritual…a day with a reminder. Dumping the rain gauge reminds me to post. On Tuesday I clear out the accumulating rainwater, and expect in the following week to watch the gauge refill, to whatever level the heavens decree. And on Tuesday I toss my thoughts over the fence here at Kiss the Garden, and wait for what the heavens decree for the coming week. This child of Tuesday will Kiss the Garden whether life lessons are green or brown, loam or mud, lush or scraggly. (Scouts honor...) |