Love Letters To My Garden

I first found the gardener within when I was a young mother. Suddenly, flowers became increasingly important to me. I told myself I was driven to beautify the space around me as a celebration of my marriage, my babies, and my beautiful life. In hindsight, it was probably more to offer proof of existence, as I felt parts of myself slipping away. My garden gave me a place to plant my own seeds and watch them grow, unaffected by other demands. Regardless of the increasing number of days spent feeling overjoyed, overwhelmed and sometimes isolated, I could trust those flowers to reward my care of them by blooming again and again, as though they understood that rather than me keeping them alive, they were my lifeline. I have gardened ever since.

I cannot explain the satisfaction of sinking my hands down into that velvety soil. There is a rush that comes over me when I realize the snow is almost done with us. I find myself checking my garden every day like a mother waiting for her eggs to hatch, eager to know if they have all survived the cold. When those first few plants poke their heads above the ground like an advance team sent to scout and report to the others that it is safe to come out, I can feel my very soul exhale as though it has been holding its breath since fall. That is what gardening does for me. It is a drug whose side effects are more than tolerable. I willingly accept a few more wrinkles from the sun exposure and meaningless tasks that don’t get done on time in return for gloriously colourful surprises that greet me every morning.