How Life Does

a small course in miracles.

I’ve always loved hollyhocks. When the girls were little, we would zip up to Cambria for an easy two day trip. Walking around town, I always made sure we cruised by a little rustic house which had in its yard the most beautiful hollyhocks. I loved the delicate papery flowers and the strong tall stems. (Once I measured and they were taller than me!) Hollyhocks remind me of English cottage gardens and simpler times. (Interesting fact: they’ve been grown for centuries and were popular in Medieval gardens!)

As much as I tried over the years, I never had luck with Hollyhocks in my own garden. On the rare occasion that I would find them as starters in the nursery, I could not for the life of me get them to bloom. It was just about a month ago when I thought of Hollyhocks again and inquired at the nursery if they had starters. They didn’t, and informed me that while they could get the seeds, I should know that Hollyhocks only bloom their second year.

AH! I said. It all made sense. I’d never been lucky with Hollyhocks because they don’t bloom in the first year. Bummer, I thought. Who wants to wait two years?

Food and flower gardens have been a challenge for us on our property. Varmints of different variations mostly. Years vary, but last year was especially rough. I spent hours and hours trying to keep critters out of my huge and healthy tomato plants. I planted mint to deter them, put up garden fencing and gopher proofed what I could. In the end, what the gophers didn’t get, rats did. And what rats didn’t get, mice took care of. Critters are smart- and they broke me. Eventually I gave up and they dined on my green tomatoes and baby zucchini for the rest of the Summer

After last Summer, Brad thought I was crazy to consider another garden. But then again, I’m a gardener at heart and a strong-headed capricorn. So- I planted veggies. I threw caution to the wind, and decided it would be what it was. When it would have made historical sense for me to try harder, I hardly tried. I barely fertilized or amended the soil. I spent a few spare moments throwing up some sort of fencing that wouldn’t stop any animal, especially a determined varmint.

It’s not that I didn’t care about the garden surviving, it’s that I was tired. Burnt out. Burnt out means you have been rung out like a towel. It was like…last Spring there emerged an upbeat little gardener from within me, hoe in hand. But it arrived into the shell of a worn-down, menopausal mother of teens.

At one point during the spring season, the gardener within me threw a bunch of “Bee Garden” wildflower seeds into one of the garden boxes. In the past, seeds never worked for me as I forgot to regularly water them during the work week. I knew there was even less chance of them being watered this year. I planted them anyway…

…and maybe you can guess where this little story is heading. As I was telling it to Brad last night he said: I see where this is going, so get to the point.

Brad and I are a bit tired. Mostly, we’ve never been middle aged before and it’s all new. We’ve never worked this hard. We never imagined it. We’ve never worried so much about the state of the world. We are parenting with intense purpose, trying to educate our kids in a very certain way in the short and precious window of their late teen years ..just as they start to “wake up” to the real world.

Last week, a dear friend was in town and as my 17-year-old and I sat with her over coffee, I said to my friend: Talk to my daughter about money. I sat back with my coffee and a wave of relief washed over me knowing that in the next 30 minutes, my child would get exactly what she needed to hear. My friend said so many clear-headed things that the next day my 17-year-old started up an online business she had been thinking about for a long time.

I know it seems like I got side tracked there with that last paragraph but…trust me, somehow, it’s all part of it. I have felt desperate for guidance these past 9 months. Mostly I have needed to guide myself, researching my way out of awful menopause symptoms (I did it) and enjoying/enduring/experiencing the trepidatious and intense shaping of my teens

whom I must sometimes parent
by the light of my scars.

We do the best we can (well, most of us do.) What does it mean to do your best? To scatter seeds when you’re too tired to do so. To let the gardener take residence within you when you don’t believe the garden will grow.

I will never forget how I asked my friend to take over like that. Just for a moment. And how she did. Seamlessly. She, who can finish my sentences, who could silently, energetically say in that moment: Sit back mama, I got this. And I sat back with my coffee. (GOD it felt good to sit back! )

Yesterday, I took the dog-in-training into the garden on a leash. (Have you ever tried to work in the garden and hold a dog on a leash? Didn’t think so. It’s not for the faint of heart.) First I watered the beautiful (nearly-red) tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini.

Then, I began to weed the grass-filled bed where many months ago I had thrown the seeds. I was soon sweating- pulling out a lot of hard-rooted crab grass (and the dog was pulling me the other way) when suddenly emerged a flash of purple and pink. Lupine and cosmos and alstroemeria began to show themselves from where weeds had once been. I continued to pull more weeds closer to the center of the bed until …I came upon…wispy petals on a stocky stem; a strong, paper-white Hollyhock. And another. And another, with buds tight. Ready to grow tall, above and beyond.

I ran back into the house, tripping over the dog, straight to the computer to find out it is rare, but not impossible, for a hollyhock to bloom early.

But only when conditions are just right.