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amgimagines

~ evolve. practice.create.

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Tag Archives: garden

When Life Gets Hard(er)

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by amgimagines in gardening, life, personal

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evolving, garden, growing, life

When things are hard, sometimes they get harder. It is what it is—or whatever frustratingly true phrase you might apply to this fact of life—can seem like such a flippant dismissal of life’s hardships. But… it is what it is.

After moving thousands of miles, facing a lot of difficult stuff, and digging up hope (and digging up that garden), I got hit with a super sharp pain in my side. And, before we even had health insurance sorted with our new situation, I landed in the hospital with an emergency appendectomy.

Ouch. Not only the physical pain of it. The inconvenience of healing isn’t what I want or need right now. My husband tells me being a martyr is not the same as being a hero; and that not taking care of myself does no one any favors. He is so right! But that is more of the annoying wisdom that is frustratingly true—but not really what I want to hear right now.

My garden? The tilling? All of it is out of my hands now. The nurse laughed when I lamented that I wouldn’t be able to till for six weeks. She said—maybe you can water your plants with a very small can.

My cilantro, chives, and basil are growing beautifully in the kitchen window! I will have to share pictures later. The vegetables, hollyhock, and lavender depend on my daily tending in their small cove outdoors. I had been helping to control their exposure to the elements using some clever ideas from a Better Homes & Gardens article. I started them in containers and chose a spot on the front stoop where the sunlight was good, and I could tend them easily.

But after falling ill, the resulting hospital stay, and recovery, I fear they may be lost.

I’m not giving up though. Recovery is hard, and I mean recovery of any kind. It can take from us so much, so fast, and it can seem so unfair. Sometimes it seems all the effort, research and learning, time spent and time sacrificed in other areas were completely wasted on some good intention that is now completely ruined through something beyond one’s own control.

As I was making my lengthy to-do list, I began doodling—which is a common thing for me. I started the meditative practice of a mandala. My approach is pretty casual and happens spontaneously in the margins of my notebooks and journals. But it is a good practice to help us creatively connect and remember that—no matter circumstances in our lives—we can only control what we can control. Begin in the center, small and simply, and make your marks traveling outward. Find an approach and make it work until you can create something with mind, body, and spirit.

I’m not giving up on my garden. I’m starting with what I can control, and focusing on what is working. My herbs are doing beautifully, and I think a hollyhock is pushing up. Maybe a couple things were lost, but enough can be saved. And it is still May—maybe I can get some sprouts together before the end of June and have a garden to show for anyway.

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My husband has offered to finish the tilling, and said his price is more years of marriage. I said I’m okay with that deal. This isn’t what I planned, but I think it will work out just fine–probably for the better. I will start small, and build from there.

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Unexpected Transfers and Transformation: Growing a Garden

17 Sunday May 2015

Posted by amgimagines in gardening, life, nature, outdoor living

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garden, gardening, growing, life, transformation

I previously lamented my nostalgia for the north: how I missed the blooms of spring and the seasonal changes of things further from the equator. Life is such a funny thing—a strange change of circumstance caused us to unexpectedly re-settle further north and west in a matter of mere weeks.

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This is the little bit of earth I have to work with, and so I’ve given my gardening attempt a couple hours each day this week.

This new place, our temporary home while we search for something more permanent, also affords me the support of wonderful family, the treasures of living in a smaller town that I so sorely missed, and a small patch of land to work up a garden this summer.

What perfect timing, too! Mid-to-late May is about prime planting time around here. My very kind sister-in-law will likely be able to bring their tiller by next weekend so I can work up the patch I’ve roughly outlined (approximately 7’ by 14’ feet), and I’ve started most of my seeds in containers so as not to lose any time. While my seeds germinate and sprout, I’ll be working up my brand-new plot and attempting to get a decent mix of soil going. If you are new to gardening–or coming to it years after growing up with gardens but not really knowing a whole lot beyond “well, Mom made me pull weeds…” I recommend you check out this for some super basic, but helpful, information.

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The first day I got this little tiny bit turned over, plus the entire outline of the whole plot, before some rain hit.

Life is so strange… It takes us where we are afraid to go, and where we would never expect to go. But yet, once we are there, it is obviously the perfect place to be. And so it is, a long and difficult journey leading us to—well, we may not quite know even yet—but it really has become about the process.

More and more, I look at my artistic and green-thumb endeavors, and marvel at what my family and I have been through. All of it together makes me realize the great thing of this universe we live in. Chaotic order, or whatever you care to call it… it is beautiful.

In all this, though, there is a deeper call to quietness. I think we forget, in the hubbub of survival and searching for security, the most simple of things: our families, our friends, and the love we have for the things we hold dear.

So during this extremely hard and trying time that is also absolutely amazing, I am making every effort to live each day better than the day before. I am determined to live with intention. All my actions, all my words, all my creative endeavors ultimately require intention. Without it, my soul or whatever you’d like to call it, is a bit topsy-turvy, running off-kilter in a world that has also, I think, largely lost its intention.

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The Helper Dog. Once things are planted, she’ll be disappointed that I no longer welcome her digging. For now, she is the greatest contributor to the compost pit.

I think many of us have strange happenings that bring us to a moment of reckoning or revelation. When these things bring about huge change, a new (or better) habit, or wonderful new tradition, it is exciting. I love hearing from others the ways the world has altered the tiny things to completely transform the bigger things—so feel free to share your story in the comments, too.

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