What does the world's most thoughtful husband do when his wife is stuck away from home at the beginning of gardening season? He sends her photos of the garden so she doesn't miss the first flowers, and so she can be assured that everything is fine in her absence. Aww....
The last two weeks of May are planting season here in southern Ontario. For weeks, I've been coddling and coaxing seedlings under the grow lights on my counter, then gently introducing them to the outdoors a little at a time. I've repotted, babied, and nourished them to be their best selves. Then I carefully planted them, adding fertilizer, arranging insect netting over them (to keep the squirrels out more than the insects, at this time of year), and fixed mesh cages over the zucchini hills. I've built barricades with sticks to try to keep rabbits from jumping into the raised beds. I've sprinkled chili flakes on the soil to deter squirrels. I've fiddled and fiddled with the watering system to get it just right. In short, I've done everything I can to give my seedlings a fighting chance.
And then I abandoned them.
Yep. Plunked them into the ground and left them for two weeks, while we went up to the old church we're renovating to install a kitchen. Insanity? Perhaps. But it was the only window of opportunity my husband had to spend time there.
Except he didn't.
He dropped me and the kitchen units off, with our sons helping to manhandle them into place, and then he and the boys took off back to the city and left me here to organize everything. He was supposed to be back a few days later, but he ended up with some commitments back home that he needed to attend to, so he didn't come back. The plan now is that he'll come Wednesday and take me home Thursday, having spent a total of two nights at the church.
While I've been here, I've kept busy with a few different projects, but it's been an interesting exercise in trying to be "in the moment" and "here," instead of pining to be back home in my garden. I've tried to tell myself that there's nothing I can do for my darlings, so it's best not to think about them. They'll either survive or they won't. The squirrels will dig them up or they won't. The Jerusalem Artichokes will either take over in my absence or they won't. The sprinklers will work or they won't. Since there's absolutely nothing I can do, there's no point fretting about it.
For the most part, I've managed to do that. I've organized the new kitchen, worked on stained glass, weed-whacked the back yard, baked cornbread and cookies, crocheted, washed laundry, read a lot, written a little, applied for a job, gone for long walks, and watched too much YouTube, and I've been pretty good at pushing my tomatoes and cucumbers out of mind. No doubt when I get back to the city, I'll have to do it again in reverse, trying not to think about the church and all that needs doing there. Why is it that, no matter where we are, our minds are always somewhere else? The key to contentment is being where you are and finding joy in the now, but even though we understand that, it's very hard to do.
While at the church, I've also tried to envision what life would be like if I didn't have a garden at all. If I lived in a condo and could only grow a tomato plant in a pot on the balcony. If I had to buy all my produce from the farmers' market instead of growing it myself. Would that be feasible or would it be torture? Would I relish having free time or would I miss working in the heat, fighting off mosquitoes, battling bunnies and weeds, worrying about soil alkalinity or the dominance of Sunchokes?
Probably the latter. Because even though gardening can be a hard slog, the rewards are innumerable. Not just the produce, but the exercise. The fresh air. The satisfaction of bringing in bowls of the harvest. Filling the fridge with greens and cucumbers. Knowing where lunch came from. The smell of damp soil. The watchfulness of robins. The pleasure of taking part in creation.
But until I can get back to all that, I'm here. Now. With cookies to be baked and books to be read and stained glass to restore. Good luck, my little seedlings. I'll see you soon.
Brio smiling in his sleep.
Sorry it's a bit blurry -- had to snap this with the camera on my laptop.
Please check out my recent chat with The Provident Prepper on their YouTube channel. Such nice people! Such a lot of info to try to cram into twenty minutes! Such problems with my camera freezing! But it was lots of fun and I think it turned out well in the end, thanks to their patience and their terrific editor.
My husband took me for a drive on Mother's Day to Kariya Park in Mississauga. Lots of people out enjoying the colour. We live on such a beautiful planet!
My latest manuscript got declined by my current publisher. It appears they no longer publish the kind of stuff I write (and I still have three years left on my contract with them). Anyway, there were about five minutes of angst, and then I sent the manuscript off again to a literary agent. I think the key to not becoming discouraged is to keep something out there all the time, so that when you get a rejection, you can reassure yourself that you're still waiting to hear back on the other thing. It steers you toward hope instead of despair. All is not lost! There may yet be good news!
Although...there's also the little voice niggling in the back of my mind that says, "I've done this successfully 12 times before. How come suddenly no one wants what I'm writing? You'd think I'd have the hang of this by now." It's easy for self doubt to creep in. For anyone out there who's reading this who wants to get a book published, stand firm and have faith in your own ability. You'll find the right home for your stuff eventually. Though I remember one instructor saying that writing a book and then looking for a publisher for it is like cutting a key and then searching for the lock it fits. It's much easier to select the publisher first and then write according to what they want. But then, when the manuscript is rejected, it may mean having to revise a lot in order to submit it to the next publisher. And then the soaring hope and crashing disappointment cycle begins again.
In which case the only possible response to the situation is to go eat cheesecake.
