We have a little family and friends garden plot in my grandparent’s yard. They live a mile down the road from us–which has been a precious joy since we moved back home from North Carolina. We wanted our boys to know our grandparents. It’s been really beautiful.
Growing our own food and seeing relationships take root in the meantime has been a joy. We plant, we till, we weed, they water, they keep watch and let us know when to come by.
The boys love their days in the garden. It is also a good excuse for us to slow down and head over to spend a few hours with my grandparents. It feeds our soul in a slow way. I pause in those exquisite moments and think “Please, God, don’t let me forget this.” The sun shines in big fat rays, the breeze blows right on by, the world just feels equally vast and completely intimate. You want it to last forever in your mind.
We go to listen to wisdom about growing, of both people and plants. I leave feeling like we’ve poured into the generations that bookend us…the people we’ve come from and the people we’ve brought forth. But, really, we’re the one’s whose souls have been drenched.
I’ve always joked that I can’t raise anything that doesn’t cry when it’s hungry. In a moment that has stuck with me, Husband’s grandmother told me she used to feel similarly. However, as she’s aged, she’s found great joy and grace in getting to witness and aid in the growth borne from gardening. She says it’s comforting that she can still nurture and bring forth life. I tucked that moment away for the days when my life holds less crying and more longing.
Growing and changing is the one constant in life. We can’t stop the clocks. The sun always rises as surely as it sets. It feels good to be slow and to put a little energy into positive growth.
My grandfather and I call memories “creases”…like the little wrinkles in your brain. When I was a little girl he told me that each time something memorable happened your brain got another little crease. Since then, when we have a moment we want to remember, we call them creases.
Collecting memories, harvesting the fruits of your labor, and always growing. This is the stuff of life.