When we first toured this home, I fell in love with the coastal landscape as much as the layout. The house sits at the edge of a sandy salt marsh, surrounded by live oaks, palmettos and loblolly pines. The thriving mix of fuchsia oleanders and crape myrtles seemed exotic compared to our first midwestern garden.
I was accustomed to a calm palette of phlox, Shasta daisies and hydrangeas. That first garden in Fishers had an established ease, offering up armfuls of casual bouquets and a delicate haze of Monarch butterflies.
Island gardening lured me with the promise of something more wild and uncontrollable. The fantasy of a “Coastal Living” magazine garden, impervious to sea breezes, grazing deer or my own general ineptitude.
However, after years of severing tenacious vines and thrashing around in prickly undergrowth, I’ve realized my relationship with this intimidating plot is much like settling into reality after the steamy intensity of new romance. The quirks that were so alluring in the beginning are the same qualities that now make me want to toss in the trowel.
This garden wears my heart on its leaves. I’m aware that its current chaotic state reflects more about my frame of mind than I care to admit. I, too, could use a dose of new direction, learn to cultivate patience with imperfection, and crop the choked branches of my internal landscape to make room for possibilities.
When I think back to the Fishers garden, I tend to discount all of the months I spent on my knees, elbow-deep in the earth, churning and flailing long past twilight. I neglect to give myself credit for showing up and digging in, no matter what the weather. I forget that I left that garden – and the life attached to it – for a reason.
By now, I know enough to tend to the dreams curling out of a long-buried fertile imagination. I still may not be able to get a garden to grow this season. But there is always the chance that the garden will grow me instead.
I so love this!
ReplyDeleteFabulous!
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