Garden ~

I spent an hour and a half in my garden last week. The first slice of evening where there was just enough light and just enough of a break in the steady rainfall to be outside for awhile.

I'd recently been given a rosebush-pruning lesson and witnessed in just days how life and health seemed to pulse back through the branches, and my hope was to apply my lesson and my snips to a few other scraggly bushes in my garden.

"Garden" may be the tiniest overstatement. When I bought this little place a few years ago, it came with a pristine new-sod lawn and a truckload of barkdust that stretched from the edge of the lawn to the edge of the fence with not a bit of life or color in between. I've been trying to fill in all that empty space a patch at a time ever since. We're no french country garden, but we're coming along.

I don't know what I'm doing in the garden. I guess I'm a bit of a city girl. My family lived in the "country" back when I was learning to tie my shoes, but that was a lot of shoelaces ago. Very little of the country experience made the trip from the "toolies" to the "burbs". For example ~ I like to think that eggs come from the dairy case at Trader Joe's. It's tough for me to admit to myself that they "come shootin' out a chicken's ass", (line lifted from the film, "Fried Green Tomatoes", apologies and credits to Fannie Flagg). In fact, a friend handed me a couple dozen brown eggs from her own chickens last summer and I gave them all away because I was just not ready to eat them after meeting the aforementioned asses from which they shot that very afternoon.

Back to the garden ~ so I don't know what I'm doing. I planted a blueberry bush a few years ago. After a few seasons, while I was delighted with the tiny white blossoms, I was disappointed that there'd been no berries to enjoy. I mentioned my barren blueberry bush problem to a woman I work with, she's a bit of a master gardener in her after-office hours, she frequently brings me little shoots and starts, and, while I can't be sure, I believe she turned her back to me for just a second to restrain a snort. She gathered herself, turned back to me and said, with grace, "um, kid", (she calls me kid)... "you know you need two blueberry plants if you want berries, right?" Um, yea, no. No. Did not know that. City girl. Apparently, mommy blueberry bush has to love daddy blueberry bush and somehow the bees get invited into this arrangement, and, well, there you go, blueberries.

I don't know what I'm doing in the garden. But in the not-knowing, I'm discovering what I do know. I know that I love the feel of my hands in the dirt. When someone asks me what kind of flowers I like, I know I tend to say "purple". The thick gardening manuals that provide all kinds of instruction on zoning and fertilizer, while I'm sure they're worthwhile, they leave me overwhelmed and confused. But invite me to walk through a nursery and drink in all the grand colors and varieties and hopeful, life-giving possibilities, and I'm your girl. I like to buy bags of bulbs at farmer's markets, even big box stores. I left the Dollar Store a week ago with 4 bucks worth of gladiolas. Why not. I know I love taking my wicker basket out to gather cherry tomatoes and eat handfuls of them right off the vine. I know I love watering in the cool of the evening once the neighborhood is tucked in and only the moon is keeping an eye on me. I know I love stepping off my porch in the morning to discover that a tiny little companion has poked her head up through the soil, against all odds, to be part of my life. I've been known to say "hello baby" to these little blooms who make their home with me.

I know I'm not alone in my garden. I know my spirit is quieted by the companionship I experience. As I tend, I am reminded that I am tended to as well. As I water, my thirsty soul is refreshed by the Spirit that is food and drink to me. Even as I cut away what is dead so that life can bust through again, I am comforted with a gentle understanding. Oh, I see. You want me to live. You want me to grow. You want me to thrive. I know... I know.

I am going to my favorite local nursery spot tomorrow. I have a list. Some new companions to share my home with me. Some purples. And maybe some yellows, some pinks, some greens. And some blueberry bushes. Two of them.