-Michael Faraday
My garden is growing, every day. At least, it's trying to. One thing to remember about gardens is that they generally need help, to become what we want them to be. Even though their entire future would appear to be locked inside it as a seed, we still shape the life and growth of these plants. As we help raise them, prune them, and harvest them, we are given the opportunity to see the life and death of something very dear to us, but at the end of the season, we do not have remorse for our loss.
Spring has come and gone, and now, instead of celebrating the new life in my garden, we begin to celebrate what that life has grown into. We water our gardens, we prune the plants, we keep them out of too much sun. All the care that we put into these small patches of damp, buggy earth now resides in the hope of the future. We know what plants are here, and now we can help them grow into foods that will sustain us with both spirit and nourishment.
My garden, however, hasn't been faring so well. It started with my attempts, in the beginning, to control and force my plants to grow. Concern for the health of the plants was only challenged by my limited knowledge of botany, and a commitment to the vision I had in my head concerning the paths these plants would take.
That was, until, my own life began to fall apart. The same as my garden, I had wonderful, exciting plans to move my life in a very specific direction, with very specific goals in mind. When those started to fail, when I hadn't realized that what I was asking for was too much... it began to shape me.
Depression comes in different varieties, but one of the most notable forms comes from the feeling of apathy. At some point the pain within does not actually outweigh feeling defeated, small, and in general, unworthy. One can end up sitting on a couch, with a TV off, a phone run dead on your side, the lights dim and several books unread, and still feel like there's nothing around that you want to do.
As I shifted into this, for several of my own reasons, I lost track of my sweet garden outside. I left it to dry in the heat, or be overgrown with vines and weeds and all manner of damaging insects. The summer storms had come and gone, and with each visit to my garden I saw the slow decline of my plants. Tomato plants began to lean, and change color. The peppers wilted and slouched. The beans were nowhere in sight. My onions seemed to fair the worst, their green stalks fallen over or torn off, yellowed on the soil.
Seeing the dismal state of the garden seemed to worsen my mood and lessen my motivation. With the final storm of the season passed, I spent the next morning surveying the damage my negligence had done to my garden. As I sat, contemplating the last few weeks, struggling to know what to do, I became aware of an unfamiliar orange color against the brown of the soil and wood chips. A carrot. The stalks of the carrots had also begun to fade, and I had all but written them off as the first to die; my previous year's experience with the fickle plant hadn't made it this far.
There was, however, a noticeable shift in the way the plants stood. Most likely from the days long storm that had ended the night before, the plants finally had enough water to cling to life a little longer. Inspecting the carrots closer, I saw that they were all doing better than I expected, save for the ones being strangled by morning glory and vines. There was still hope, for this garden.
Having pulled myself from my moment of grief, I began to work. The weeds were first, the vines were beginning to grasp at the other plants, strangling and pulling them down. As I worked in the garden, removing the vines and freeing my plants from their grasp, I became aware of my own body. Working in the garden has always calmed me, something about the sensation of putting my own roots in the ground where I live. I started to reconnect with myself, and the love for helping to care for and grow these plants.
By the time I had pulled the last of the weeds from the garden, I was feeling very different in comparison to when I first came upon it. I was feeling refreshed, and reconnected. I was excited about the prospect of finishing my original goal from a few months before. Growing food for my family, and my neighbors nearby. Helping my daughter to connect to the world around us. The next morning I couldn't help but check on the garden again and water it, surveying the area for more weeds and insects. The weather had shifted into the balmy, breezy summers that I remember from my childhood. The winds were cool, coming off the lake nearby. The mountains and trees to the east helped shade my garden from the sun for most of the day, and in the evenings, it seemed the entire world would cool off and prepare for another morning of dew and cool air.
Within a week, the garden was back to life. Tomatoes had begun to show themselves, the pepper plants unfurled their leaves and basked in the sun. Within two weeks, a pumpkin plant, planted the previous year, shot out of the ground, drinking up the water and light. The carrots were growing faster now. The onions, for which I thought all hope had been lost, were still growing. It had even come to the point where I had to begin pulling up some of the juvenile plants, to make room for the remaining vegetables to grow more.
How often to we lose ourselves in our own dismay, and forget the world around us? My garden helped serve as a reminder that there are things, even people, that need our attention and love in order to grow and thrive. My community, my family, even myself, need a chance to be the center of my focus, to be given a chance to grow and put their own roots down. And, when all hope seems lost, when we fear that we have been gone away for too long, we must remember that it is never too late to come back to the world and offer our love.
It isn't enough to simply love those around you. We must remember to give love, as well. Sometimes, the only thing that can help us find our way from the little islands that we create in our own isolation, is to go out and find ways to give our love to others, to help them grow, and in return, we are also fed. Do not deny the world the blessing of your presence. We are all bigger than our fears, and insecurities. Help us all to grow, and see that you are whole.
