Life Is Like A Garden

 

Life Is Like A Garden

Having lived in California for most of my life, along with summers in Arizona for ten years, I am well aware that wild nature and home gardens have several things in common:  They can look great or, they can look awful, for myriad reasons. Drought, fire and insects in nature can devastate once beautiful, wild areas. Aphids, ants, neglect, excessive heat and cold can wreak havoc on patio or yard plants.  Without the proper care by government and property owners, our wild areas and our patio gardens can be beautiful or laid to waste. What's more, Life Is Like A Garden.  

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My spouse and I moved from San Francisco, California, about a month ago to North Carolina. The climate in the Bay Area is vastly different compared to the tropical climate in North Carolina. The temperatures in the area in which we lived rarely exceeded 75-degrees, and in my town, Daly City, also known as "Fog City" due to fog every day throughout summer, were much cooler than that, while average temperatures in the Research Triangle are 89+-degrees daily with an average of 86% humidity. Totally different, right? Life hands us differences and complications just like it does to our gardens and nature. 

Setting up my patio garden took much planning, measuring and searching for decor that meets my personality. I love to read, so I wanted a table with comfortable chairs. I wanted to feed the birds and squirrels, but I got too involved, and now I have a feeder for the bees as well as a separate feeder for hummingbirds. This is what I wanted in my retirement; to do the things I could not do while I was working. Teachers, for example, bring their work home with them daily and on weekends, and there is little time to take for yourself. Now that I have that time, I am working on enjoying it. 

You can, too!

Plants can tell us when they are happy, such as the buds, above, and when they are in distress. In our own lives, we often put off recognizing when we are in distress and doing something about it. 

My Blackeyed Susan's, above, are a living memory of all of those same wild flowering plants I enjoyed at my aunt and uncle's cabin up on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona. They have long been a favorite of mine. I could never find them for purchase in California, but a beautiful nursery just a hop skip and a jump from where I live now has them in droves. My Blackeyed Susan's were in full bloom when I brought them home in a tiny plastic square planter. When I planted it in a beautiful authentic Mexican pot, it started losing leaves; the bottom leaves began to turn black!  It was telling me it was in distress.  I realized that between me watering it once a week and the extra precipitation due to the intense thunderstorms producing heavy rainfall, my babies were getting way too much water!  I was able to fix it, and my baby is now thriving again. 

The intense thunderstorms here are fast, furious and dump boatloads of rain quickly, and cause flash flooding in back of my patio (though there is a rock-lined trench that carries the fast moving flood waters away efficiently). I love these storms. Ahhh, memories.  

I walk my dog, Foley, about four times throughout the day. We go to the dog park, which is a patch of wooded land in the central part of the complex I live in, where I can take him off leash and let him do his thing. I sit on the bench and look up into the canopy of the trees. Yesterday, it was quite breezy up top, and the sound it made was as soothing as it had been listening to the ocean for a year-and-a-half living along the San Francisco coast. It was peaceful, and poor Foley could run amok and not hear me call him "crazy beast". 

I know that you are wondering why I am talking about my old man experiences, which is not helping you hardworking professionals dedicating your lives to your careers. 

I'm going to get there. 

Even on the best days, we can be weighed down by obstacles in our lives. It seems that no matter how much care we give ourselves, we cannot adequately meet our own needs, though we work diligently to meet our familial daily needs and wants. A garden or a wild place cannot meet its own needs, sometimes, such as during droughts or floods, with the exception of physiologically adapting to its environment, such as a sugaro cactus. It is huge, takes 75 years to produce one arm bud, has a shallow root system because the desert is often dry most of the year. Monsoons provide desert flora with water, even if it is in the sometimes vicious form of a flash flood. The cacti absorbs water up through their cortex, its vascular water source veins. 

Sometimes we absorb vino into our veins to relax, but, fun as it is, our own needs are not being fully met. Surround yourself with colorful things that please you: pillows, pictures, plants. Plants clean the air (inside) and provide oxygen. We could all use that!

Sometimes, life throws monkey wrenches into our routines that foul things up. Things that were beautifully working suddenly don't, or can't, for whatever reason. My plant, above, two weeks ago, was a falls of green and purple succulent leaves. Fantastically beautiful. Then, the top suddenly became devoid of leaves. Knowing that this plant is succulent, I figured that if I cut the falling part off and planted it in another pot, it would have a good chance of coming back. And it is!

Nature almost always comes back!

So Can We.  

We are the same way. We may have to detach ourselves from things, situations and people we love in order to have a chance to make a come back, whether it is financial, personal, faithful, or professional. Oh yes!  Much easier said than done.  I know this very personally and can add many tales to support it!

Recognize this?  It is the top of the succulent with a kind of waterfall of beautiful green and purple leaves. As you can see, the top was pretty dead. After two weeks, these cute little guys sprouted.  Where there is disruption, disappointment, frustration, there are also new possibilities. 

I have no idea what this little succulent is. I loved the clusters of tiny white flowers it had when I'd bought it. After a long while of being very popular with the bees that frequent my patio, when they stopped, I realized the tiny flowers were drying up and dying.  It hurt me to cut the flowering stems off, but now, also two weeks later, there are little buds popping out.  

There are times when life is not so difficult, so goes the start of my favorite saying one of my former principals shared with our staff years ago (but I have no idea who quoted it, so please forgive me), and times when life can become easy. It's how you adjust that matters.  

When we lose some things, psychologically, medically, personally, professionally and every other -lly I can think of, life will pop in and share with you that you can make a come back, even during the darkest of times. Even during the brightest of times.  Life will amaze you. 

You CAN adjust!

One of my best friends brought me plumeria stems from Hawaii.  Plumerias are my ultimate favorite flowers and scent. Simply beautiful and the aroma is extraordinary. 

Well, my plumeria has a story. I'd planted it a year ago and it began to sprout. It was too cool to put it outside, but it began taking off inside my apartment (so small, I nicknamed it "The Tomb"). Between two and three in the afternoon, when there was sun, it shone on my "little- engine-that-could" plumeria and finally, it began to sprout.  THEN, life threw major drastic and dramatic issues into our lives.  Both my spouse and I went through traumatic work experiences, and we both lost our jobs within two weeks of each other. We had to scramble.  With no money coming in except for my meager (but Totally grateful for) pension, which, in San Francisco, would not even begin to cover the exorbitant rent of our tomb, we had to make huge and quick decisions and tragic sacrifices. Two weeks later, we decided to retreat and move to North Carolina.  BEST decision EVER. It was not without its problems, but we were so grateful to be accepted by our apartment landlords and love where we live. But I digress. On the drive cross-country, my oldest son drove one car (I call it the beater) and my delicate plumeria was in that car.  By end of the five days' drives from California to north-central North Carolina, my plumeria had been pulled out of its terra cotta pot, the leave's bloom was knocked off and it was drying up.  It's been since August first, but despite the arduous drive in the middle of summer and being dug out of its pot three times by squirrels, my plumeria is sprouting leaves. 

IF that poor plumeria can take a beating and make a come back, so can WE!

One of the most difficult situations to endure is when something of life-altering import is left "up in the air", just hanging there without resolution. Every day, every minute feels like years of pain and angst.  June and early July acutely felt that way for me; my heartbeat was not correct, my blood pressure felt like a geyser without a release vent. My head pounded excruciatingly every day, all day, for a month-and-a-half. Before long, my vision blurred. I could not step foot outside, held back by ferocious fear. My fingernails began turning purple and blue because I forgot to breathe in my severe angst. The resolution that I was awaiting with false patience loomed above me like the gleaming, scarred blade of a guillotine. Every breath, when I actually remembered to take one, saw me waiting for the blade to drop and destroy my life. 

What I did not know, which you Must know, there was someone working assiduously for the truth, and it was found. When I learned what I knew all along was true, I felt as if my entire body cracked and the painful, crushing coating that had encased me fell off and broke into millions of pieces, like a seashell pulverized by the constant pounding by ocean waves. 

I was free. 

 I know how utterly terrifying situations like this are. There is no easy way to get through it. Faith, prayer, meditation, whatever helps you find your inner warrior, use it and use it often.

Just know, just remember:  What goes up must come down.

My poor injured Japanese Iris, above, has had more than its share of damaging moments. I know I have.  A birdhouse I'd bought that I'd hung up above it, fell and mashed the base of the iris. Squirrels have attempted to dig it out to bury acorns.  It is the start of autumn and the squirrels are fully invested in stuffing themselves and hiding acorns for another month. My poor iris, like my nearly destroyed beloved plumeria stalk, however, is coming back!  It is reforming. I moved it, you see, out of the line of the path of the squirrels. I made a tiny change and it made a positive difference. 

YOU can do this in your life.  

You know my spouse and I did. One change, in the heart of chaos, made all the positive difference. 

Shedding a little light on circumstances can give you much clarity. I usually do not get that clarity until it is absolutely needed, but, it does come. Have faith.

Finally, our gardens, like our lives, are not seasonal. Yes, different events and situations occur at different parts of the year, such as taxes, property taxes (for home and landowners), car insurance and such. In nature and our gardens, there are annuals, perennials, deciduous and coniferous. Some die back, but they always return with just a little TLC. Pine trees, while not losing their needles, produce pine cones each year, laden with pollen, distributed by bees, birds and yes, my buddies, the squirrels. There are more helping hands behind the scenes of our lives than we will ever know and understand and we really must say a word of gratitude every day for that. 

And with that, tend your gardens. It only takes a few minor adjustments to change things, make things more enjoyable, more endurable when things are crushing and severely damaging, knowing all along that nature always finds a way back. 

WE CAN TOO.

Like my buddy, Rufus, here....

Hang In There!