Red’s “Garden Metaphor” From Orange Is The New Black
Red’s “Garden Metaphor” From Orange Is The New Black
“The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity.
The garden is about life, beauty, and the impermanence of all living things.
The garden is about feeding your children and providing food for the tribe.
It’s part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food.
It’s a competitive display mechanism, like having a prize bull—this greed for the best tomatoes and English tea roses.
It’s about winning; about providing society with superior things; and about proving that you have taste, good values, and that you work hard.
And what a wonderful relief, every so often, to know who the enemy is.
Because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time.
And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth, growth, beauty, danger, and triumph.
And then everything dies anyway, right?
But you just keep doing it.”
