Imperfection

I start my days going outside at first light with my coffee and take in the weather, the temperature and the bird song.  Still in a half dream state, I try to get out of the heady sleepiness and step into the world, so I take note. 

Has one of the chickens flown the coop again? (Blanche!). Has it rained? What’s happening in the garden beds?  I note the thick medal coral fence that I’d bent into an arch to be the trellis entry way for the garden, and the way It’s not quite straight, driving my brother (OCD) crazy, the whimsical gate I’d built with him that is neither straight, no entirely functional, the “Flowers” sign I painted and mounted myself, it sliding off in a dramatic slant.  The ground just inside the garden entry is covered in a year’s-worth of sunflower hulls as I’ve been feeding the birds from a feeder hung on the archway and now sunflowers are cropping up all willy-nilly everywhere.  I have chipped and mulched dozens of bags of oak leaves and still the asparagus is buried. 

Despite the disorder, there is quite a bit to celebrate. Happily, I see that the glads I’d planted two summers ago and failed to lift in the fall have fornicated in their mysterious way and now there seems to be dozens coming up.  The comfrey is blooming already, the snap dragons self-seeded and are coming up on their own.  Garlic I’d missed are coming up too.  The raised beds, just three by six feet each, are full of growing things. Off at a distance, I can see the grape vine wreath I’d fashioned a few years ago and hung on a tree is now thin, grey and oblong.  How had I failed to notice this?  

I think it is because I am able to look past the imperfections and bask in the successes.  I think, because I am a mother, that nothing is as important as helping the little ones succeed and I fail to see the broken, stretched out bursts of rebellion. Afterall, the garden is a living breathing being and, at this point, it needs me.  And I am so ready.  I too am imperfect and in need of care.  I too have failings and potential and a strong need to grow.  Caring for the animals and the flowers and vegetables, I get what I need, which is a strong urge to nurture and to tune into something other than myself.  And I am so glad there is nothing perfect out there to compare myself to, that I can be free to be me there.  

Yet, there are practical bonuses.  Shallots and arugula…..berries and the treasure hunt for potatoes.  It’s a give and a take.  A win-win.  And it’s only just begun.  Sitting in trays under grow lights are the summer crops, waiting for their day in the sun, waiting to give back what I put in.  This is a world that makes sense to me.  And I am surely going to wake each morning, grab that cup and count the blessings in my life.     

                                                                                                          –  By Jenny Folk