Join The Garden

My backyard, with an apple tree and a full lawn and bushes of all variety, gets pretty verdant once spring arrives. Everything just grows and grows. The grass gets long, the bushes sprout new leaves and branches, the apple blossoms bloom. It happens every single year. Technically, it’s my yard, yet all this growing happens without my consent. The winter and spring rain and the daily warmth of the sun is apparently enough. I have no say-so over the rain and sun either. They just happen – or not. The weather does what it wants to do on its own schedule. I’m just an interested bystander.

The yard changes slowly, of course. There’s not much difference from one day to the next. You might be lulled into thinking nothing is happening at all. You would be wrong. At some point you’ll look up and the lawn will need mowing and the bushes will have the appearance of a child who’s gone a year without a haircut. And when did all that ivy show up on the side of the house? And didn’t you just cut back the holly by the front gate?

I survey the situation. So much to do. What would happen if I simply did nothing? That is an option. How often have I dreamed of entering some permanent vacation from all the business of life? I know, however, the results of doing nothing. I know what the yard looks like when it hasn’t been tended, and I how I’ll feel as I gaze out on it. I’ll be reminded of all the times I haven’t participated fully in my life, let something roll along and grow until I found myself somewhere I didn’t want to be. My stories never wrote themselves, after all.

Out comes the mower and sheers. By the summer I’ll be picking up all the apples that have dropped. It’s not the most exciting work, but it’s okay. It’s what I need to do live the way I want to live, but also, if I don’t gripe, and if I sink in to the meditative nature of weeding or raking, I sense the familiar satisfaction that comes when I join with the garden and its ceaseless, ongoing, inevitable growth.

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Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
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