Alexandersmap

    Category: Garden and Home

    • Torn Between Two Places

      God it’s so painful when something that’s so close
      Is still so far out of reach
      — Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, American Girl

      September conjures up images of red and gold leaves in crisp air. I thought of their possibility while sneaking another swim in water that believes it’s still summer. But what we linger on isn’t always where we are, is it? I reminded myself to savor the water while I was still in it.

      We’re often torn between where we are and where we want to be. Between things we’re comfortable doing and things we’d like to try. It’s a fiendish place; nurtured dissatisfaction with one, with a lingering frustration that the other is just out of reach. We reason with the mind to accept one place, while the other place sings its siren song. No matter, were we to reverse our position, we’d likely yearn for the place we just came from. Such is human nature.

      The space between seems to be the real issue. We can’t have it all, but we dwell on images of places we’d love to be, or parts of our lives we’d love to return to, or maybe run away from. Surely, it’s there in that between where the devil resides. It’s our no man’s land where dreams go to die if we dare wander into it. And don’t we all stumble into discontent at times in our lives?

      All season I’ve been dealing with a garden neglected at the start of the growing season while I bounced around in Europe in June. It never really established itself, then came the drought, and here we are at the end of the season with a sad little garden that’s a shadow of its former self. The garden and I gave it a go, despite it all, and now it will go dormant for the winter before we try again next year. But I wonder, will I be inclined to try again, or leave it for the beauty of another place once again?

      Such are the considerations of an itinerate wanderer with a strong sense of place. Making a go of it here, while thinking about there. With American Girl playing in my head as a soundtrack of this life between two places.

    • What We Will

      “If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” — E. B. White

      I grow cilantro, not so much to eat it, but to watch bees roll around in the wispy white flowers that wave ever so lightly in the breeze. Surely someone must grow cilantro for all the tasty dishes (or soapy dishes) one might imagine it worthy of, but give me the bees, please. Summer officially ends for me the moment the cilantro peters out—like life itself—entirely too soon.

      The dance between the earnestness of rolling up your sleeves and fixing things versus opening up your heart and savoring all the world offers is a constant struggle. As with everything, we must skate the line between the world of order and the world of chaos, Yin and yang. Nobody said this living business would be easy, but it’s such a short ride we ought to make the most of it.

      Still, there’s work to be done, and no time to waste in solving the world’s problems. As anyone out there trying to get things done knows, there’s just not enough people willing to make a go of it and do the work. Every school, every hospital, every landscaper and construction firm and restaurant is struggling to find a warm body with an eager mind to simply do the work. Who are we to ignore the call? Yet so many do.

      Every day should be filled with a bit of challenge, and a bit of seduction. Every life lived well ends with a measure of satisfaction for the things we did well and a measure of consternation for that which wasn’t accomplished. That’s life, and we must learn to skate that line. In the end, we do with it what we will.

    • A Garden Monk Sips Coffee

      A monk sips morning tea,
      it’s quiet,
      the chrysanthemum’s flowering.
      — Matsuo Bashō

      The mornings are chilly again, and unlike Bashō’s poem, full of the sounds of squirrels gathering food and bickering about who gets what. The water is warmer than the air, for the sun is reluctant to stick around so long nowadays. The seasons are flipping, just as surely as the hickory nuts are falling.

      I think about the fall cleanup and shudder. Is it the chill in the air or the thought of forced labor to come? We dream of autumn for all its beauty, for the crisp air and the scent of fallen leaves. We forget about the work. We pay penance for the pleasure.

      I promised myself I’d drink more tea this summer. I planned to use more of the mint spilling out of its terra cotta pot in an attempt to displace the basil in the neighboring pot. Yet the drink of choice is most often coffee. Does coffee nullify my monk inclinations, or does the ritual matter more? Ask the flowers—for they’ve quietly observed all summer.

      For all the changes, some things remain the same.

    • August Signals

      Black-eyed Susan’s once again dominate, staking a claim on more of the garden every year if you let them. I mostly let them. They remind me of conversations with a favorite gardener who’s moved on, which means they’ll forever receive favorable treatment in my garden.

      Crickets receive no such favorable treatment, but we peacefully coexist nonetheless. They play the soundtrack of August. Most of the year we hardly give crickets a thought, until they begin playing their persistent song from mid-summer to mid-autumn. Thousands of musicians announcing “We’re here, if only so very briefly.” Is there anything more stoic than a cricket?

      The gardener senses the seasons. No calendar is required. The days grow shorter even as the heat continues. For these are the dog days of August, marked by black-eyed Susan’s dancing to the persistent tune of an orchestra of crickets.

    • Garden Blessings

      Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave
      May I a small house and large garden have;
      And a few friends, and many books, both true,
      Both wise, and both delightful too!
      And since love ne’er will from me flee,
      A Mistress moderately fair,
      And good as guardian angels are,
      Only beloved and loving me.
      — Abraham Cowley, The Wish

      The air is filled with squeaky chirps and the buzzing sound of wings beating the warm morning air, announcing that the bluebirds of June were replaced by the hummingbirds of July. They remind me that the garden, despite early neglect, still dazzles, inspires and informs. The frenetic urgency of the hummingbirds to feed brings life to the midsummer garden, just when it most needs a lift.

      It’s sometimes easy to forget the things we build around us that attract nuance and substance. We build our lives on the four cornerstones of relationships, legacy, learning and action. Each in turn determines who we might become as we build our life atop this foundation. Like the birds flirting briefly with the garden, people come and go from our lives. Jobs and money and fashion come and go. We each note the changes, but how we react is determined by who we’ve grown to be.

      What is a garden but a foundation? We stake our place in this world to cultivate our hopes and dreams as life changes around us like the seasons. Each season brings enchantment, frustration, context and acceptance. We become what we cultivate, influenced by the seasons but not always determined by them. Everything has its time, and the blessings in our lives must be realized in their own season.

    • Delusions of a Hopeful Gardener

      “The thing is you could eat someone’s entire backyard garden and it would be less than 300 calories so what are we doing here?” — @HelloJessicaFox

      A handful of blueberries, picked before they fully ripened, was the extent of the harvest this season. The catbirds and chipmunks got the rest. But at least the tomatoes are showing some progress (until the groundhog determines they’re ripe enough to sample). Sure, gardening is a joyful pursuit, but it’s also folly.

      For most of us gardening isn’t as much about feeding the family as it maintaining a connection to the soil. We grow up watching our grandparents and parents harvesting a bounty of fruits and vegetables and somehow we feel compelled to keep the dream alive. Really, who are we fooling? My garden will produce a few good tomatoes, a summer’s worth of basil and mint and not a whole lot more. If I were a settler 250 years ago I’d have starved to death.

      Yet we press ahead, planting our gardens full of hope, only to have them dashed by Mother Nature and her cast of flying monkeys gobbling up every last blueberry. We dare not complain should she toss in a swarm of locust for good measure. Live with that handful of produce and count your blessings. There’s always the farm stand down the street.

      Still, there’s always hope, and this season I pushed through the challenge of being away most of June and kept almost all of the edibles on track. The season is still early, and there’s still a chance for a bounty of delicious fruits and vegetables… Do you see? The delusions of a hopeful gardener on display.

    • The Garden Blues of June

      There’s been some unusual activity in the garden lately. A squirrel walked up to me as I sat still sipping coffee, looked me squarely in the eye and didn’t run away until I called his bluff. A pair of bluebirds, normally quite shy, are aggressively guarding the birdhouse they made into a home. They let that squirrel know it was time to move along, while given me a sideways glance to remind me there will be no eggs for breakfast for me today.

      Speaking of blue, it’s almost blueberry season in New Hampshire and that means the return of catbirds, the little devils who gobble up ripening blueberries by the pint, usually just before harvest. In previous years I’d rig netting and chicken wire to hold them at bay, but they always seem to find a way to the fruit. This year no netting and only a half-hearted attempt to chase them away. After traveling for much of June I’m conceding the early harvest to nature. Maybe I’ll have better luck with the tomatoes later in the season. We all choose what we fight for in this world. Isn’t it funny how that changes season-to-season in our lives?

      Earlier this morning I walked around the garden, seeing first-hand all the work I’ll need to do to set things straight. Nearing the fence, I spooked a large doe, who betrayed her position in her panic. I told her as her white tail bounced away that I’d never have seen her if she’d just waited a beat longer. Movement betrays, it’s only in stillness that we become one with the natural world. The doe had no use for my unsolicited advice.

      The garden is neglected and mocks me my late return to tend it: “Too little, too late pal.” Such is the way, for stillness need not apply in the garden. But I’ve come to think of the garden differently this season. Or maybe just my position as head gardener. I’ve taken something of a sabbatical this year with more emphasis on the hardscape and less on the seasonal magic. Looking around, it feels foreign to me, this garden I’ve labored over for years. Thinking about the behavior of that squirrel and the doe, I wonder if they simply aren’t used to having someone linger in the garden anymore?

      Gardens, like our lives, ebb and flow. In June 2022, when things are usually flowing, I feel an ebb. So much feels different this season, but the bluebirds remind me that change is inevitable. We either roll up our sleeves and get back to work or we wallow in the blue. Gardens frown upon the wallowing gardener, for the season—our season—isn’t over just yet. And so it must be that we get back to it once again.

    • On Place and the Tilt of the Earth

      “I am summer, come to lure you away from your computer… come dance on my fresh grass, dig your toes into my beaches.” — Oriana Green

      Maybe it was appropriate that today, June 21, the Summer Solstice, I awoke at 4 AM—just in time to mark the exact minute (4:13 AM CST) of the tip of the planet back towards shorter days. But let’s worry about that tomorrow, for today is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. After bouncing from Vienna to Boston to Nashville, my body isn’t quite sure which time zone it currently resides in. Yet the mind is fully rested and ready to hit the day.

      By the time of the solstice it usually feels like summer has been with us awhile. This year feels different, like I’m running away from the season. Travel will do that. I spent a day at home assessing the neglected garden before flying off once again. Is that a tragedy or simply a new way of experiencing the season? The weeds seem to enjoy my absence, while the cats seem surprisingly annoyed when I packed a suitcase as soon as the laundry was done from the previous trip. Sorry felines, the world calls.

      Do you wonder why we heed the call at all? Isn’t summer a chance to slow down and relax for awhile? Tell that to a farmer. Europeans know how to take a proper holiday, Americans jump right into the next thing. Which is right? It depends on what you want your life to be.

      Ultimately summers, like life, are made by what we do with the time. Whether our longest day or our shortest matters little if we don’t make something of the moment. Experience begins with presence, the rest is just finding a place to land and the tilt of the earth.

    • Become a Holy Fire

      “And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, “When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

      Walking about the garden upon a return from two weeks in Europe, seeing the progress of some plants and the decline of others from neglect, it’s easy to become lost in self-forgetfulness. Minor tasks become meditative when we focus on the work. So it is with hiking in solitude, where every step matters and the mind is forced to quiet itself that you may land properly to take the next one.

      If the aim is to become more open to the spirit of the world around us, surely we must quiet the chatter in our own heads. Be still, learn to listen, observe and receive the energy that might otherwise bounce off our closed mind to find a more willing recipient. What do we lose in our closed-minded self-conversation but our chance to be one with the universe?

      The thing is, most of our self-talk is useless at best and detrimental to our progress at worst. Our Lizard Brain, as Seth Godin calls it, is our worst enemy, making us feel like we aren’t measuring up, that we should have done things differently, that we don’t deserve the moment we’re in now. It’s all crap, and not what we’d expect in a close friend. But who is closer to us than ourselves?

      This Hasidic concept of receptiveness is one way to push aside the self. If we are to become a holy fire today—and in our stack of days, we must tune our receiver and accept the positive fuel that stokes our furnace. We must throw aside the wet blanket of self and accept the world as it offers itself to us.

    • For a Little Bit More

      “You’re not lazy, you’re in the wrong job. Do what moves your soul.” — @master_nobody

      This tweet is admittedly a bit fluffy, but it poked at me all day after stumbling upon it in my feed. I suppose it’s because there are times when I scold myself for being lazy. For not doing the work necessary to make more progress in my profession or with my overall fitness. We all get like that sometimes, don’t we? Self-critical about our productivity. Maybe our labor is misdirected?

      There are plenty of times when I’ll forget I’m working at all. I’ll find myself moving six yards of loam after work and pushing past a point of exhaustion to get it done before nightfall so the coming rain doesn’t turn it into a mud pile. Or being teased about not ever relaxing on weekends or vacation, instead constantly working on the garden or doing an errand instead of sitting still with a book or a beer. Or methodically writing and re-writing a sentence in a blog post that may or may not resonate with anyone but me. These actions are not lazy, they’re stored up energy attracted to heat. There’s nothing hotter than clear purpose.

      Why do we waste the vitality we’re blessed with on anything but the pursuit of our individual greatness? It takes a few turns through the grinder of absolutely-wrong jobs to see the tragedy of misapplied energy. We do what we must to keep food on the table, but we ought to always be moving towards blissful work. Work that makes us laugh at the thought of ever retiring.

      Sure, we may just be able to relax someday, but I don’t know if that nagging feeling that we could have done more would ever disappear. Doesn’t it make sense to make a go of it with this, our one precious life? To do things that inspire and excite us, and make us want for a little bit more at the end of a long day. When we move to purpose laziness disappears.