Starting to Garden
My gardening began in an act of violence, born of a long frustration with some Japanese anemones (my husband called them “daisies,” and I accepted it, then.) that were flopping over the walkway, blocking my route into the house. In writing about it, I broke through two obstacles, one a misplaced sense of being too “busy” to write in an exploratory, let’s say “playful” way, the other a conviction that I did not garden, that that was something my husband did. You can read “Daisies” here.
Four years later, I have not exhausted the metaphor: this blog is evidence. If anything, the metaphor has self-seeded. When things surprise me, such as crocuses blossoming when it’s only the very end of January — hardly spring yet — I imagine myself on a surface with a a lot of complex events in progress below. I imagine conscious perception spread thin over a depth of structures equally capable of threat or triumphs.
