Issue No. 5: The Garden

Celia Thaxter’s Garden, painted by Childe Hassam, 1890

We found something unexpected when we moved into our new house: a garden.

The raised bed, built in the shape of a parallelogram, edged with white rock and lined with soaker hoses, is substantial—at least 5 feet wide by 6 feet across. It’s also a complete mess. Weeds crawl out in every direction, bits of metal trellis are rusting and sharp to the touch. Stalks of 4-foot tall sunflowers are dried out and crisscrossed in a pile like firewood.

We didn’t see the garden during our initial tour of the house because it’s hidden, tucked away in the side yard, invisible from the front door or the back. Although we’d looked at the Zillow listing a million times and poked around before we signed a lease, we only really knew the basics before we moved in—four bedrooms, two baths, affordable rent, safe neighborhood. That was plenty for me.

So exploring our new home, keys in hand, felt like peering into C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe. And here, in the hidden garden, was Narnia.

I didn’t just see a pile of weeds and dirt; I saw possibilities. A vegetable garden, an herb garden, an ornamental garden of roses and poppies. (Maybe all three?) I couldn’t wait to get started.

This weekend, I finally did. I parked the baby in her stroller under a tree, spiraling red and gold leaves offering plenty of entertainment, and set about cleaning up the mess. I yanked up the trellis, cleared out rusting metal, and started in on the carpet of weeds.

It felt strange digging in another woman’s garden. Clearly, before it was abandoned, this garden had been someone’s pride and joy: I found bits of a terracotta pot painted with children’s handprints, lava rocks and crystals placed just so, tags from the various veggies once grown and harvested. All that’s left of the original garden are two twisty, beautiful morning glory plants, one purple and one blue. These I will protect at all costs.

At first these little discoveries spurred me on, kept me curious and motivated. I dug, and plucked, and dug, and plucked. Then two hours passed, I became covered in sweat, and the baby started crying. I looked up to consider my work. The result? I’d barely made a dent. The metal was still piled up in our yard, the weeds seemed to have only multiplied.

It got me thinking about how hard it is to remove things once they’ve taken seed. Maintaining a garden a little bit at a time, keeping the basic structure clean, is a lot easier than ripping the whole thing out after years of complete inattention. Crabgrass invades the same way Hemingway says you go bankrupt: “slowly, then all at once.”

I think our minds are a lot like gardens, and what we choose to cultivate is what grows. And, just like gardens, once a weed has taken root, it’s pretty hard to get rid of. For example, last week, when I binge-watched every episode of Selling Sunset, I planted a few terrible seeds: envy of the women’s impossibly thin bodies, judgement of their absurd outfits, resentment for their luxurious lives. I was left with the fruits of those seeds for days: suddenly my thighs looked worse than they ever had, my clothes looked drab and boring. I considered buying new skincare products. Teeth whitening strips. OrangeTheory classes. An entirely new wardrobe. It took quite a bit of digging to throw those thoughts, not my self confidence, into the compost bin.

Habits are sneaky like weeds; we don’t always see them growing. One hour of reality T.V. might be harmless, but seven hours of reality T.V. is a problem. As Warren Buffett often says, “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken.”

I think about this with stuff, too. It’s never been easier to buy stuff you don’t really need. It feels harmless: just a few clicks on Amazon and an exciting box arrives at your door! Until a few years go by, you’re caught in the habit, your linen closets are overflowing, and your retirement account… is not. Avoiding the problem now is easier than cleaning it up later.

Our habits matter, because bad habits can choke out all of the available sunlight, water, and soil required for good habits. There’s only so much room in the garden.

In some ways, I’m looking forward to winter this year. Cold, freezing nights offer the opportunity for a complete reset, nature’s annual reminder to clean it all out and start over again. By January 1st my garden will be laid bare, and with a little effort, my mind can be too.

Until then, I’ll keep plucking, one green shoot at a time. The beauty of spending time in nature isn’t reserved just for smelling blooms in springtime—manual labor of any kind has its advantages. Dirty hands make for a clean heart, a clean soul. Any hour away from TV, online shopping, and general nonsense is rewarded with a certain peace of mind.

As Celia Thaxter, the poet whose garden is depicted above, once wrote: “Into thy calm eyes, O Nature, I look and rejoice; Prayerful, I add my one note to the Infinite voice.”

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