13. Student of the Garden

One of my favorite writer-mentors, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic to name a few, talks a lot about remaining a student of life. She reminds readers that oftentimes the things that are challenging to us are the first time we’ve encountered them, regardless of our age. So if it’s our first experience with something, why would we assume we’d know what to do or how to proceed? She says that in the student mode, we can be gentler with ourselves and lead with curiosity.

As the summer progressed, I grew more comfortable with the idea that I was a novice at this gardening thing. I was comforted by the thought that people who are really good at gardening, like my grandparents, at one time did not know everything about lawn care, vegetables, and flowers that they did, by the time they seemed like experts to me.

Gardening by trial and error provided me with an opportunity to flex the muscle of being okay with making mistakes. To not seek perfection, and to rely on my creativity and common sense. In this way, this experiment was liberating. It gave me practice in this approach, which I hope helps me operate this way in other areas of my life.

In the past, perfectionism kept me from trying new things because...what if I messed up? Gardening is the adult playground where my actions answer, "so what if you do? If you're having fun, who cares?" 

12. New Insight Takes Root

As I walked past the house that has the raised bed made of stone, I saw the homeowner moving her sprinkler around her front yard. I stopped and told her that her raised bed had inspired me to consider doing something similar with a surplus of stones I have taking up space in my tool shed.

She seemed up for a chat, so I started asking her questions. We spoke for several minutes about the flowers and plants in her yard. She’s not from the Midwest, so she talked about having to figure things out in a different climate and with different soil. She talked about the plants that fared well, others that didn’t, and some that she’d dug up because she didn’t like how they looked, grew, or spread.

My conversation with her planted the seed that this gardening thing is about acquired knowledge and not knowing everything before I start. That concept will take a little time to bear fruit. I tend to want to know a lot before I begin anything new. It helps keep the mistakes at a minimum, but it also ensures I miss out on some great experiences.

She told me about the flowers that tend to reseed (day lilies and zinnias) and could help fill out my vast space without extra effort on my part. This conversation helped me keep dreaming, keep envisioning what is possible for my mess of a weedy hill.

What I am most interested in is filling the space I have with low-maintenance plants and flowers that edge out the volume of weeds that have multiplied over summers past. I don’t mind weeding some, but what I am weeding at present is ridiculous.

She even invited me to come back in July to take some of the plants she plans to divide when she returns from a trip to China. Free plants! That’s an idea!

11. More Weeding, Another Trip to Home Depot, Friends, and Plans for the Backyard's Future

One Saturday,I weeded and watched as storm clouds blew in. I heard the rumble of thunder. I put off mowing my front yard thinking that rain was imminent. An hour later, I pulled out the mower and THEN it began to mist. I never mowed the front yard so fast. When the rain came down harder, I assembled an IKEA chair for my daughter as a surprise. The momentum of the morning's work kept me cheerful and productive the entire day.

I shopped for more flowers and soil. I also bought seed packets, work gloves, and pruning shears. I am serious about this pastime now, and it made for a happy shopping trip.

What a difference three weekends can make! I now feel drawn to my backyard. When I’m working in my yard, it feels like play. I want to be out there all the time. My time outdoors feels like an adventure,particularly when the mowing is done for the week. My curiosity meter is turned on high. My body is tired and sore, but I don't want to be finished. It no longer feels like work.

It is fertile creative time too. There seem to be as many metaphors for life in this gardening as there are weeds to pluck. I have grown fond of and dependent on two tools: my hand ax and a pitchfork I am borrowing from neighbors next door. In this wild time, I think of naming the tools and writing a children’s story featuring them as main characters.  

Later that day, my dear friends Gus and Manda visited with plans to stay for dinner. I gave them a tour of the backyard. We sat down in the rock and talked and talked and mindlessly pulled weeds. The weeding definitely didn’t feel like work with them.

They plotted and dreamed with me about how to navigate rehabilitation of my hill. I've always thought of breaking the project into thirds going from left to right, but Gus suggested (with more know-how)of breaking the space into thirds from the bottom up. We staked out the plan for this summer with church friends' offers to come for a work day. I felt better about the progress than ever before. I saw a path clear now.

It’s so good to spend time with these friends. They helped me hang colored lights in the backyard and we built a fire in the fire pit, where we talked books and life.

I was tired and happy. I was amazed that the lonesome feeling I had a few weeks before had nearly faded away. I feel close to my grandparents when I'm outside and more happy memories of times spent with them rise to the surface.

I know that this work is good for my soul. It feels timely that I am making this discovery about gardening and what it can add to my life and my schedule at this significant three-year post-divorce mark.

Before

The pesky stuff I'm digging out

After 

Rainy day productivity

Members of my team with lights hanging in the trees and fire pit lit

9. I've Been Here Before

As I plucked more of the unwanted vegetation that comes back thicker each summer, summers of my childhood emerged in my mind like a filmstrip across my forehead. I saw myself riding my bike in the driveway as my dad did the Saturday yard work. He was hard at work, but he looked up and waved or stopped the mower to answer a question.

Two sycamore trees loom large in my memory. The one on the west side of the house. The one I loved to climb. Then I remember the time I climbed it, spooked myself and couldn't climb down. I was no older than third grade and my little first-grader sister stood on the ground below. Her arms were outstretched ready to help me. I felt a hot wave of fear. She was too little for this job. “Go get Mom,” I barked, convinced that without her I might be stuck here forever. My sister ran in the house and brought Mom back with her. Her height comforted me and her arms beckoned to me. With her hands guiding me, I eased out of the tree, dumbfounded that this thing I'd done a million times confounded me today.

The other sycamore, taller, broader, and more majestic anchored Steeleville's backyard. The family gathered under the shade of the tree when my sister and I wanted to be pushed on the tree swing. My grandpa or uncle took one spot and my dad chose the opposite and they pushed us back and forth, back and forth. I loved the sensation of being so far off the ground, aloft, the warm Kansas wind breathing on me, whipping my hair off my neck and back. I felt light and happy. 

In the background, the neighborhood was surrounded by cottonwoods—my other favorite tree. The cottonwoods' leaves shivered and and made a rustling sound even in the lightest breezes. I loved the sparkle their leaves cast.

My grandparents' backyard was a wonderland. It felt like a farm minus the animals, and it's where I learned that getting my hands dirty was a fun way to spend an afternoon.

I came back to the present, a little breathless. Maybe I haven't given myself enough credit. Maybe there was a little outdoorswoman, a little gardener in this bookworm all along. Maybe I've needed extra time to cultivate that part of me. What other things are below the surface of who I think I am? What if I gave myself the space and time to explore?

10. Conversation in the Cul-De-Sac

I have been a distracted neighbor the past few years. Two families moved into the cul-de-sac in the years when I was cocooned in my misery and distracted by the work to break out of the tight spot I was in. They’ve each had two children, and the sweet things are old enough to play together and spend a lot of time in the cul-de-sac.

One evening I struck up a conversation about one couple’s landscaping. I asked questions about what they’d chosen to plant and the maintenance required. I began telling the wife about the lawn hurdles that I was trying to overcome and the things I’d already conquered on my own as a solo homeowner.

I described the too-big pampas grass and how I’d cut it down by hand last summer with shears I’d bought at ALDI for $9.99. I told her how I really needed electric hedge trimmers to cut the grasses down shorter as the YouTube video demonstrated.

I lamented all the work ahead of me and how sad and overwhelmed it had made me in the past. My neighbor said, “Girl, you're stronger than you think. If you can do all that you've done, you can tackle your backyard. When you're ready, call me. I'll bring over my electric hedge trimmers, and we'll figure out how to do what you want.”

The sun went down, the streets lights blinked on, and it was bath and bedtime for her little ones. I thanked her for the pep talk and the offer of hedge trimmer and help, and walked back to my house. It's amazing how big problems can look smaller when they are viewed from a different vantage point. My neighbor's words were uplifting and encouraging. I was rejuvenated and motivated to keep on working. To keep making progress. To keep seeing where my efforts might lead. To imagine what beauty I might be able to conjure.

8. How to Split Pampas Grass

I spent the bulk of Memorial Day in my backyard. I alternated between reading in the shade and weeding and other yard work, also in the shade.

What the day taught me was that being a complete novice can be liberating. And having the mess of a backyard such as mine, whatever effort I expend can't hurt anything.

Since I mowed two days before, any work I did on my yard felt like a bonus. In the back and forth between leisure and work, I remembered how much fun I actually had playing outside as a little kid and that learning how to work on my dastardly hill can be a form of play in adulthood.

I googled how to divide ornamental grass. I tried it on my own and learned that it's a project I'm going to need help with. I don't have enough upper body strength. I was frustrated for only a couple minutes, then decided it wasn't worth getting upset over and moved on to the next thing.

I committed to starting a compost pile in my backyard. While I'll keep working on eating  the fresh fruits and vegetables I buy, I won't feel as bad when something goes bad before I can get to it. Now, I'll add it to the compost.

I made a “Work in Progress” sign with two boards that needed to be thrown away. I am nourished and encouraged by words. These word signs provide a reminder that I am working toward a great goal and every effort puts me closer to that goal. They help me remember to keep my chin up.

Mostly I spent time enjoying different aspects of my backyard and accepting that with little money to work with, I'll need to continue to be creative, but to no longer feel ashamed by it. It is what it is and when I can make it better, I will.

It will also feel so good when I can see the progress and know that my efforts, creativity, and ingenuity, if not my own manual labor will have made a difference.

7. The Shift in Perspective Continues

I really want to enjoy my outside space. I am a bookworm at heart. I’d like to get more comfortable spending time outside. The begonias and hanging basket have already made the backyard feel more appealing.

I remember something a friend said to me as she looked out my window on a gray February day two years ago. “Julie, move that wood pile someplace else. That alone will help the look of things.”

I looked around my shed and realized it needs to be reclaimed as my space. I took things off the shelf and discovered it is usable space taken up by a mower bag for a mower we haven’t had for six-plus years. I moved things around, swept up dirt and cleared away cob webs. I carried things to the trash container.

Having taken inventory of the shed that used to be ours and is now only mine, I realized I have space for the wood pile inside the shed. I spent my outdoor time moving the pile of wood wagon-load-by-little-red-wagon-load.

My friend was right! The hill looks less cluttered. I look at it with less contempt than I have in the past. I have begun to see it as a canvas on which I can create something beautiful. It sounds weird to apply this to a physical space, but loving my backyard exactly as it is rather than as I wish it to be is having a transforming effect on my attitude and my desire to work to make it better. Love Rules. Even when it comes to an ugly backyard.

My head and heart feel clearer too as the wood pile is relocated and the outdoor space finds a little bit more order. I have mental space, more and more of it, actually, to face this mess head on.