It's almost gardening season. Are you ready? We sure are! There's a lot riding on the success of our 2013 garden. I'm not just talking about a bounty of vegetables to fill our bellies, freezer and pantry. We need some spiritual healing by way of this new garden.
Have you ever felt like you're stuck in a muddy swamp of bad luck? Bad juju? Bad karma? Whatever you want to call it. Geez louise, we are currently buried in it my friends. Buried. We were riding high on a slip stream of promise a few months back when we made the decision to move across the country. We felt as if we were being pulled, guided by uncanny forces toward this house, and this new life. There was an incredible amount of effort and work to get us here, and along the way most of the details just seemed to fall into place. It all just felt right.
We're all healthy and together as a family. This is the most important thing in the world to me. But as of late, we're wondering what sort of karmic debt we're paying off. What lesson are we to learn from all of these struggles?
I've been an optimistic person my whole life. I see the sunny side of darkness, and my cup is always, always half full. Heck, optimism even runs through my veins, I'm B+ through, and through. But, oh goodness, my positive outlook on life has been rocked during these last months.
I will spare you the details, but this house has been a major challenge. Let's just say we've had a line of contractors in our driveway since we moved in (electrical, plumbing, foundation, roofing, drainage, insulation). Every (every) major structural piece of this house needs work. In many cases the work that we've paid to have done has been done incorrectly, and the repair needed to be repaired. One contractor even ran his truck in to our house! Like, bam! in to the house. Which, of course, now needs to be repaired.
If I had the energy, I'd laugh at the absurdity of it.
Forgive me for this rant. I wouldn't mind if you'd already tuned out, goodness knows I'm tired of hearing it, feeling it, and seeing it myself. But I've needed to get this all out for sometime now. I've started several posts, attempting to talk about our struggles, but I haven't been able to articulate it well enough to hit publish. This space we're occupying as stressed out, emotionally exhausted, crazy-people is not familiar territory. I'm ready to shed this skin of bad fortune. I long to crouch down in the dirt, and plant the seeds of hope. I want to nurture a bright green future here, on this land.
For us, gardening is almost a spiritual practice. We all find our center there, digging in the soil, harvesting the fruits of our labor. There's a collective exhale when at the end of the day, the Man and I can meet in the garden with a beer and our harvesting basket. And my girl, she's got the green thumb, too. She's inherited our love of gardening, and some of our best moments happen while playing in the soil together. Simply put, the garden is just about all we need.
Soon, we will breaking ground on our new garden. We have a lot of work to do to get the field in gardening shape. More backhoes, dump trucks, and whatnot are in our future, but they'll be making their way up the bumpy dirt road to work on a project that brings us all joy. We don't have the date circled on the calendar just yet, but until the big dig happens, these little baby tomato, and chile plants provide a glimpse of the spiritual healing of the spring ahead. And that's just what we need.
Now, where's my smudge stick?
