Category: Joy

You May Say I’m a Dreamer

Spring in the garden is rolling out just as Mother Nature intended.

The daffodils, crocus, and tulips were the first to emerge from their winter sleep, dotting the landscape with pastel splashes of hope. As they took their last bows, the crabapple trees and lilacs burst onstage with showy displays of pink, magenta, purple, and white. Today the moonlight and lydia broom are happily hosting honeybees in their cheerful, yellow blossoms. Perhaps tomorrow the roses will bloom.

Every year I watch this gradual awakening in amazement. Every living thing in the garden knows its purpose and its time. It’s the most harmonious thing I’ve ever seen. It reminds me of a fine orchestra playing a classic symphony. The woodwinds, strings, percussion, and brass all have unique parts in the arrangement but somehow manage to blend together in consummate crescendo.

I’d like to say that this picture brings pleasant music to my heart and my lips – perhaps Pete Seeger’s 1962 Turn, Turn, Turn or John Denver’s 1971 Sunshine on My Shoulders. Normally, I think it would. But today it makes me sad – sad that the same sweet harmony I see in my garden is not likely to ever roll across humanity and push society forward in a way that benefits all.

All the hate and fighting that has tainted our world for centuries is finding fresh, new battlegrounds every day. Whether the issue is politics, religion, disease, natural disasters, power or money, humankind uses it as fodder for more division, more blame, more discord. It seems there is no appetite in this world for peace, or at least there is not enough hunger for it.

Even I – a self-described Pollyanna – am having trouble seeing a way out of the darkness that’s enveloping every corner of the planet. Each day it gets harder to look at the bright side of life, harder to share the joy that can still be found if we care to look for it. It’s disheartening, to be sure.

And yet, I persist. Because that is my purpose. I’ve spent most of my life trying to make the world a better place by helping others, writing stories laced with lessons, and otherwise letting my light shine. When God assigned me to this Earth, He put a pen in my pocket, a smile on my face, and a kind word on my lips. This is no time to throw away my tools and give up.

Like the plants in my garden and the instruments in an orchestra, I will continue to play my part. I can only hope that what I do – and what others like me also do – brings some measure of peace to this troubled world. Even if I write only one story that inspires someone, share one smile that comforts someone, or say one kind word that encourages someone, it will be worth the effort.

Maybe I’m ready for a song now. With thanks to John Lennon … “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.”

Never Give Up – A New Perspective

About this time last year, I wrote enthusiastically about reviving a “little twig of a rosebush” that was struggling in our front yard (Never Give Up). It had responded to my attention by producing two small, yellow blossoms. I couldn’t wait to see what heights it might reach the next season.

Alas, the little twig remained a little twig throughout this past spring. It greened up when the weather warmed, but that’s all it managed to do. It didn’t sprout new growth. It didn’t create new buds. It seemed to simply be baking in the direct Nevada sun.

I don’t easily give up on roses, and I didn’t give up on this one. Carefully, I dug it up, potted it in premium soil mix, and carried it around back to my Secret Garden. Beneath the arching vines of a Lady Banks rose, I found a shady spot for it to regenerate. If magic could happen anywhere, I thought, it would be next to a statue of Little Red Riding Hood and a stepping stone stamped with the Frog Prince.

It took some time, but the magic happened. The little twig grew into a miniature version of the bush I know it aspires to be. Then, just as summer began to wane, it produced a bud.

I debated at length whether to get it back in the ground before the weather turned. Ultimately, I decided to let it winter in our guest room. There, it basks in the morning sun that streams through the east-facing window. It continues to sprout new foliage, and I’m anxiously waiting to see whether the sole bud will finally open.

As I light-heartedly wrote a year ago this month, the saga of my little yellow rosebush reminds me of the “never give up, never surrender” tagline of the cheesy Captain Jason Nesmith in the space spoof Galaxy Quest. It still does, but the passage of time has led me to another, deeper conclusion.

That little rosebush seems to know something most of us aren’t so sure of – its reason for being here. The purpose of its life. Its destiny. To produce a flower – a short-lived thing of beauty in the span of humanity but a source of joy for those lucky enough to behold it. A source of nourishment for the bees and butterflies that seek its nectar. A source of life carried on the wings of those amazing pollinators.

Am I saying that my rosebush is a sentient being capable of understanding its purpose on an intellectual level? Not necessarily but, if so, then it’s more advanced than we humans. Our intellect actually seems to get in the way of understanding our purpose. I’d like to suggest that maybe it’s not as complicated as we think.

What if our purpose, metaphorically speaking, is the same as the rose? What if we are simply here to create beauty, spread joy, and nourish each other’s minds, bodies and hearts in all the ways we need nourishment? What if our purpose is to send a life-affirming legacy into the future on the wings of the next, amazing generation?

And what if we never, for one minute, gave up our quest to fulfill that purpose?

Keep Calm and Carry On

Powdery mildew. Black spot. Rust. These are not conditions a rose enthusiast wants to see in the garden. They’re all forms of fungal disease and, unfortunately, my roses were hit this year.

I’d like to say that the first thing I did after discovering there was a problem was to identify the source and fix it. You know what they say about any kind of hole you want to crawl out of. Stop digging, for crying out loud.

Alas, my first reaction was to literally cry out loud.

When I collected myself and did my due diligence, I realized we needed to reprogram the entire drip system. The roses were getting watered in the early evening along with everything else on the property that likes a little drink before bedtime. Roses prefer their brandy in the morning, thank you very much. It turns out, evening binges leave them with a nasty hangover and vulnerable to any sleazy fungi loitering around looking for an opportunity to stake their claim.

Reprogramming the drip system probably sounds easy-peasy … if you’re high-tech savvy. When I was a kid, adjusting the water meant moving a sprinkler from one side of the lawn to the other. Now it means entering numbers into something that looks like a bomb detonator. You have to know what sequence affects which drippers and whether to include said sequence in Program A, B or C. One mistake can foul up the whole thing.

For a 65-year-old who’s still trying to figure out how to stop text alerts after 9 p.m., the prospect of reprogramming the drip was paralyzing. Here’s where I pause and extend a thousand thank yous to my husband who did battle with the blasted thing for me … twice!

Arresting the source of the problem was only the first step, of course. Then I had to play surgeon and remove the diseased foliage. Next I tapped into my inner fireman and sprayed the bushes with some healing mist (an organic brand that promises not to kill bees or animals or humans along with the sleazy fungi).

All the while this was happening, I couldn’t help but notice that my roses seemed oblivious to the drama. They calmly continued to produce new foliage, grow new buds, and take my breath away with spectacular blooms. They continued to live their beautiful life despite the ugliness that threatened them. It was like they inherently knew what we humans must see repeatedly in memes and on coffee mugs, posters, and t-shirts before we realize the genuine wisdom embedded in it.

Keep calm and carry on.

It might seem impossible to live a beautiful life with the overwhelming level of ugliness that exists in our world today. I don’t need to waste space here to list the maladies. You know them by heart.

The question is, can we also teach our hearts to memorize the goodness that surrounds us? Can we still grow, learn, and bloom despite the drama? Can we spend every day spraying our personal healing mist on those around us to make their world just a little more beautiful?

I’d like to think we can.

It’s All in Your Head

The joy of gardening is all in your head.

That is never more true than at this time of year when spring is struggling to keep the calendar’s promise. Mother Nature teases us with scattered days of pleasantries, abruptly disappoints us with stormy behavior, and repeatedly threatens to give us the dreaded cold shoulder.

By the time she finally warms up to our adoration, most gardeners have already worked through the entire growing season in their heads. I, for one, do more gardening while sitting by the window sipping warm coffee than I ever do outside.

Even as I write this, I’m mulling over the idea of planting a climbing rose in a small splash of bare earth by the front walk. I’m contemplating how to elevate the grotto in my secret garden so I don’t aggravate my aging knees every spring clearing winter debris from the rocks. And I’m considering whether to trim a creeping juniper away from a footpath or drape the spears over a low barrier.

Once I get to these tasks, sweat will sting my eyes and underused muscles will scream. But the hard work – the creative process that gives my brain cells a run for their money – will be far behind me.

This process is likely to be just as familiar if you’re a dancer, an artist, a musician or a “creative type” in any discipline. Just replace the word “gardening” in my opening line with anything you happen to fancy.

As a writer, it’s actually a required step in our secret playbook. Whether I’m composing a blog, an article or a book, I spend hours in thought before I ever sit down at my computer.

Recently I watched Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks and, for me, the best moment of the film came in the first 15 minutes. The ever disagreeable Mary Poppins’ author, P.L. Travers, wasn’t even plotting a storyline when she turned away from her frustrated visitor, looked out a window, and tested a metaphor to describe the pink blossoms on a flowering tree.

I’m fairly certain most of the family watching the film with me wouldn’t even remember that line, let alone be affected by it. I, however, can’t forget it. I’m forever hunting the same kind of metaphors.

Do the purple flowers dripping from the branches of our locust tree look more like clusters of grapes or kaleidoscopes of butterflies?

In the spirit of dynamic retirement, my experience with the creative process is playing out in yet another arena. In the last six months, I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about taking up watercolor à la Georgia O’Keefe or impressionist painting in the style of Claude Monet – and no time at all actual trying either one. While I might be tempted to beat myself up for such willful procrastination, I choose instead to see this time as the prelude to a new kind of rapture.

Like gardening and writing, the joy of it is all in my head.

Purple Robe Locust