My Sanctuary

After a long stressful day, I longingly anticipate the soothing effect my garden provides. I gather my trowel with its elongated smooth wooden handle, happy a splinter is nowhere to be found. I consider it to be an old friend; always nearby, dependable and willing to lend a hand. Hum, I thought, all that from a trowel. As I meander through the tall grass with its emerald fingers reaching for the sky, I spy a robin happily pulling worms from the soft ground and the graceful dance of a hawk drifts far above me on an unseen current. Invigorated by the fresh air, I am grounded by my connection to the earth.

I reach my sanctuary and all my cares float away like a feather blowing in the gentle wind and reminisce the times the wind sent me soft caresses on bare skin, ruffled my clothes and played with my hair. Opening the tall latticed wooden gate, I lovingly glance at the tiny plaque hanging by a piece of torn and tattered twine, “Mom’s Garden” it reads. I smile to myself and enter. As I kneel to till the soft earth, slightly damp from a spring shower earlier in the day, a musty earthy aroma enters my nostrils. I throw my trowel to the side and sink my hands directly into the soft, moist dirt twirling the earth around my fingers. “Wear gloves.” my husband always says. “No way.” I lovingly reply. Planting and tilling a garden with my bare hands allows me to spend time with nature in a very personal way. A true healing garden, I feel.

My relationship with nature is close as I understand what is needed for life to thrive. Lingering over seedlings to observe their growth is as if I am watching my own children from birth to adulthood. Surrounded on one side by tall dark green foliage that supports the roundest, reddest fruit, the tomato. So perfect, in its own way. Red and smooth as the finish of a newly waxed car. On the other side of me, jalapeño peppers, some long and thin like fingers of the wicked witch of the west. Others, not round, not square, a shape only known to the bell pepper. The gnarly sting of thistle burns my hand as I gently and delicately pull weeds from between the plants so as not to disturb their home, but to give them more room to expand and thrive. I pull a few lettuce leaves, wilted from the hot day in the sun and place them aside for tonight’s salad. A cucumber here, a carrot there, completes the bounty the earth provides.

Creating beauty through the creative use of space, and giving myself over to the possibilities of birth and growth connects me to the basic force of nature by being in the moment and allowing nature to sooth me. Nature’s power is as close as my breath, and I breathe deeply once again before returning to the world around me.