What the Garden Gave Me
I couldn’t sleep last night. My mind was full of tangled roots—memories of my dad, old griefs, the way the past refuses to stay buried. But this morning, as always, the garden was waiting for me. The air smelled like rain, though not a single drop landed on my head, thanks to the thick canopy above—same tree that drops squirrel poop on me, like some chaotic offering.
I love my back garden. Did I say that before? I love it in a deep, steady way that feels like a lifeline. It gives me something to tend when I can’t tend to my own tangle of emotions. It gives me rhythm: pull the weeds, clip the dead blooms, notice what’s thriving and what’s not. There’s comfort in the repetition.
There’s always more to do. Always another plant leaning sideways, another pile of debris, another moment that asks: will you care for this? And I do. Even when I’m tired, even when my heart is heavy, I show up. Maybe especially then.
Even when I’m not in the garden, I’m thinking like a gardener—wondering what I’ll take with me to Michigan, how my plants will fare while I’m gone.
Sometimes I think I use gardening the way I use humor: as armor, as therapy, as translation. It’s how I process all the things that feel too hard to say plainly. The soil listens. It absorbs. And unlike people, it always gives me something back—new shoots, soft blossoms, even the surprise of a lone marigold I never remember planting.Or maybe even a wild strawberry!
So no, I didn’t solve anything today. I didn’t fix the family tree that split years ago. But I pulled weeds, I cleared paths, I tended what was mine to tend.
And that, for now, is enough.
