This garden thing.... what am I up to, here???
I have been encouraging anyone and everyone to come dig flowers and take them home. It feels both wasteful and destructive and exhilarating, in that way that throwing a cheating lover's belongings out the window must. The gardens too, it seems, are fraught with unspoken power struggles, attempts to put on a brave face. It's not that I've turned a corner and have chosen to gracefully and intentionally change things. Not quite. I just can't stand them anymore.
See, I had this vegetable garden. I liked my vegetable garden. One year (when I was in graduate school), I didn't get out there to plant quite quickly enough, and my vegetable garden had been turned in to a flower garden. No discussion. Just Dave taking over something I enjoyed, making me feel not good enough....
I pretended that it was all for the best. It turned out, possibly, that Dave liked gardening. Or maybe he just didn't want to be with me on the weekends, who can say? Whatever. More gardens appeared. The yard was improved, certainly.
Truth? I never liked it. I said that Dave had beautiful gardens. But what I THOUGHT was that Dave had beautiful flowers and hum-drum gardens.
I know that all these flowers represent time and money. That chatter runs through my head, certainly. What is it with me that I can't make something about them work? Am I such a brat that they have to go just because they were his?
Ummm.... yes, apparently. But I don't think (quite) that I'm being a brat. The mental lightbulb illuminated yesterday. Another little garden is on the chopping block. More flowers sent off to live somewhere else. Bring your spades. I'm serious.
However, I have decided this.... I need to clear the slate.... make the canvas clean.... choose your metaphor. I can't see what needs to happen out there until it's emptier. By the time I figure it out, the perennials that I'm giving away will need to be separated and thinned at their new homes. Perhaps they can come back here again, and settle in new places. Wouldn't that be interesting?
1 comment:
I don't think it's wasteful. It would be wasteful if you just plowed them all under (although I guess that doesn't work with perennials) or threw them in the trash. You're sending them off to new homes where they will be loved. It's regifting! And I think it's fine that you don't want to try to make them work and would rather start over with something wholly your own. Rock on!
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