Groundhogs in the garden
This is a hard time we’re living through. I feel for those of you with school-age children, facing awful choices. I fear for my teacher friends, facing unimaginable choices.
There are times when I feel like the crises we’re all living with make it easier not to worry about the small stuff, and all of my problems are pretty small compared to what other people are dealing with. And there are times when when that doesn’t help me, because the crises feel so overwhelming for all of us.
Still, I’ve had some success, lately, dealing with my own mental hurdles of perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and shame—things I’ve struggled with in one form or another for most of my life. Maybe it’s just getting older. Maybe it’s getting a lot of therapy. Either way, lately, I’ve been come to look at my mind like I do my garden.
I don’t like everything about it. The most beautiful part is the area full of decorative plants that I inherited from the previous owner, which I barely take care of, just try to keep the ivy from choking the other plants. I’ve tried to plant squash and strawberries there, but both are getting too much shade from the other plants to flourish.
I prefer fruit and vegetable plants to decorative plants. Useful plants.
Take that metaphor, and all the others, as desired.
We have four raised beds. One is full of herbs. In another bed I tried to plant kale, cucumbers, and peas, but groundhogs got in and destroyed it. Some of the peas on the border are still trying.
We put too many tomatoes in their bed, and I don’t even know how we’re going to pick them when the time comes.
I had a bed of lettuce, but eventually it got too hot for the tender leaves. Some volunteer tomato plants sprouted there, though I pulled them out when it became clear they probably wouldn’t flower and fruit in time to harvest.
We have fruit trees growing, but the apples didn’t flower this year, and birds ate all of the cherries and peaches before they were ripe. Next year we’ll protect them better. The blueberries are under bird netting though, so we should get a good crop, though two of the plants didn’t fruit this year.
Groundhogs don’t like squash, but I do, and this squash patch is doing quite well so far, though I am hoping for so many zucchinis it makes me cry, and so far I’ve only harvested one.
In the corner is a compost bin, slowly turning waste into fertile soil, though some things, like peach pits and chicken bones may not break down, and I’ll have to pull them out and throw them away before returning the compost to the garden.
I like the garden metaphor, because I care about my garden, but I only have so much control. I planted some of it, my husband planted some of it, and other parts of it we inherited.
It is mine, but it’s not me. I can plant and weed and water; some things I can’t change, and some things I won’t.
Very like my mind, my thoughts, and my emotions. They are mine, but they are not me. They deserve my care, and I have responsibility for them, even the things I inherited and cannot fully control, the roots underground, the pests like the sumac trees that sprout everywhere and grow taller than me overnight. I can know them, accept them, prune where needed, and tend the garden as a whole.
It’s a good way of looking at things, for me, right now, and gives me some distance and detachment from the inevitability of groundhogs, weeds, and plants that go to seed before I can harvest them.
Climate too, I cannot change, and that is what we are going through right now, and every day. I can only plant what will grow in this climate, and harvest what my plants are willing to give.
We’ve been having a lot of fun at our monthly Historical Fiction Happy Hour meetings, and there’s another one this month. I hope you can join and raise a glass! Sign up here!