Monday, March 18, 2013

Potentiality

Last summer's garden mid-June


You will find, now that it is the season, that I write about gardening a lot. I wrote about it a lot last year—my seeds, my soil, the inspiring mycorrhizal fungi building relationships in the earth. This has inspired some of my readers at various times to exclaim with admiration, "I garden too, but not so masterfully as you!"

Were any of these readers to visit my home they would find a woman whose counter is covered with bowls of soil and testing equipment, the maps of carefully planned garden beds, their crops all rotated from years before. Gardening books and notes are heaped upon the table. Ah, yes, they'd think, she really knows her stuff. But then, at length, they might notice that I have grass growing into my perennial beds and that my catmint is wilting, desperately in need of division and re-planting, which I keep putting off. They might notice that my Russian sage has spread its suckers and is taking over the world of soil within its grasp: an empire of unwanted xeric plant.

In the backyard run chickens, next to pieces of sodden cardboard I once thought I'd use for sheet mulching, and are digging themselves dust baths in what once long ago was turf; there is another garden bed next to dog poo, an abandoned light-saber and one single dessicated unmatched child-sized sock. The home of a master gardener is probably not the description that would come to mind. The usual comment is something like, "And this is legal here?" with a nod to the chickens and ducks.

Yet they would sense that my yard has the potential to be wonderful. And that is what I'm masterful at: potentiality.

I took a course some long years back—a seminar of sorts—in which we were asked to write down all the commitments that we had, everything small and large that we had a vested interest in bringing forth into the world. My list was longest, and so I won. After having done all this and stewed on it a bit, seen the commitments we had, which we hadn't acted on yet, and gotten all inspired by the largesse of our hearts, the seminar leader then informed us that we could easily winnow down our lists by considering them thus: the only things we were actually committed to were the ones we were acting on.

I find I often think of this. "You don't have a commitment, Tara," I hear the seminar leader say. "You have a fantasy."

If anyone is insulted on my behalf, they needn't be. I have, in the twelve intervening years, failed to bring one single thing into being from that list that I was not already acting upon then. I have not built a geodeosic dome or started raising dairy goats or become the leader of a seminar myself. And I have come to accept this commitment/action business as the gospel truth.

My life has long run like that list that I made when I was twenty-five. Become a writer. Get a career. Save humanity. Run a half-marathon. The noise and distraction of interests, like commercial breaks, which run across the screen that is my brain. What, I have been asking myself lately, is the program? What is the purpose? What is the desire? What unity is the rest of it all there to serve?

The answer, of course, is found where my hands are already dirty, in the evidence on the ground. It seems I want to be a student. No matter what I am trying to do, I surround myself with books. I experiment, my face streaked with soil as I mix test units to find and record the level of phosphorus, nitrogen, potash. I like to teach only because I'm learning as I go. In the yard, full of chickens with mysterious ailments and psychological quirks, seed beds ready for planting, years of experiments to try, I find my purpose, something worthy of my life.

Conversely, the pretty, kept-up house and yard I dream of will probably always remain a fantasy, as I walk by the sock yet one more time on my way to pick up a chicken in my arms.


16 comments:

  1. Ah, but where would we be without those fantasies? I feel sorry for those people who are so very logical and structured, who don't have dreams. I may not accomplish all my dreams, but my life is happier because I have them.

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    1. So true about the dreams!I can't imagine living without them. I think my lesson has been to try and distinguish between those dreams that bring me closer to myself and those that keep me chasing after some better person that isn't me at all.

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  2. I don't think there's a damn thing wrong with forever being a student.

    I've had to learn how to prioritize as I've gotten older, and it's made me realize a few things.

    Things like how I want to write - I don't want to necessarily be a writer.

    Being a writer - as opposed to simply writing - would take too much time away from my other priorities without any compensating reward.

    And I suppose there are a few fantasies still floating around as well...

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    1. That's so astute. I've been thinking about it for days now. My flawed assumption tends to be that if I want to draw, I should be an artist. If I want to cook, I should be a chef. The point of dabbling is not to draw up lists of all the things you must get better at...

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    2. Do you read the Limebirds website? They have good post right now on the difference between writers and writerwanas. Kind of along the same line as above.

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    3. I haven't read Limebirds before. I guess, by their standards, I qualify as an actual writer. I'm glad having something published was not one of the qualifications. ;)

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  3. As always, a thoughtful post, Tara. I don't recall that I ever made a goal list back in the day (those naive twenties). But what I have noticed is that i , too, have lived with a parade of interests marching through my days. Some, like raising my children and being a part of raisin the community's children, have been sustained. Others, like running marathons, swimming laps, sewing quilts, have been modified. I used to bet myself about some of those "modifications" but I think I have finally learned that the interests served their purpose at the time and then the program changed. I changed. I know I am happiest being a student.

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    1. I hate hunting and pecking with only the left hand! Frustrating and so many errors... raising the community's children! beating myself up! I don't do that much betting! okay, maybe occasionally I'll bet a batch of chocolate chip cookies on something......

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  4. I never made goal lists, and they would have been practical and achievable if I had. Writing is the only thing I ever became obsessed with. Right now I have about 25 things on my plate and that drives me crazy. I'm a one-thing-at-a-time person, not a multitasker. So I can't relate too much to what you're saying. I think your garden is great - I never grew vegetables, but I used to grow rather nice flowers, until arthritis stopped that sort of thing - and I don't see how you can do so much what with the children, all the pets, the house, the health issues, etc.!

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    1. I wish I had a touch for flowers! I really don't. I keep thinking they'll take care of themselves. I never feel like I do that much, Lorinda. More than anything, I chase rabbit trails on the internet. Yesterday, I learned about Rome under Nero, that kids who drink whole milk are actually thinner, and then studied companion planting for twenty minutes—all between lessons with kids. I did not fold the laundry, file my papers, or dust the mini-blinds. I didn't even check my seed beds. Pretty much a typical day.

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    2. Housework is pretty low priority for me, too, unfortunately! It isn't helped by the fact that my arthritis really makes it difficult to run a vacuum or mop or even sweep, and I can't reach up any longer. I'm on the verge of getting somebody from Silver Key to clean my house. I do manage to keep the laundry going, though, and my financial affairs!
      You're a practical gardener - you want something that can provide tangibles that will nourish your family. Flowers are ephemeral, but I enjoyed looking out the window at them. I had a lot of lilies and daylilies and spring bulbs and fall flowers like black-eyed Susans and mums and asters.

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  5. To this, I can very much relate. Are you surprised? Probably not. Here's the thing, though: those fantasies? Sometimes they sit on the list and the back of the mind for years (decades?) and then one day it is the day for action. As if you've been planning all this time the best approach and then the earth revolves just so and boom! time to act. This is why I believe it's vitally important to keep those lists around. And the chickens, of course. But maybe not the ducks. Also, I'll see your sock and raise you a candle holder from a Halloween pumpkin. Just walk on past...

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    1. I know what you mean...I may once have had chickens on a list. And I certainly had the notion that I would write regularly and practice permaculture, which I'm only getting around to now. I will send all my ducks to you, if you want. They're wonderful for stamping down grass and eating slugs. They're so good, there are absolutely no slugs left in New Mexico.

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  6. Don't worry about it. As the kids grow older, your garden will look better. It's a matter of time and recourses more than anything else, I think. At least that has been the case with me. The last 3 years, I've actually had a garden I've been semi proud of. This year I am going to advance to herbs and veggies. Gulp, there, I've said it out loud. May the green force be with us this year!

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    1. I think you're likely right. Only occasionally do I meet a really fabulous gardener who also has a lot of kids still growing up. Most of them are older. Good luck with your herbs and veggies. I am re-reading a book I just adore, Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway. It's full of ideas I would never think of for gardening at home. Sometimes, for me, the right book is the thing that gives me confidence to branch my garden out. That and a little fortitude. :)

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  7. Maybe I'm biased, but I think an eternal student is the very best thing to be.

    In a weird way, this post reminded me of a fortune I got in a cookie a few weeks ago. It reads: "If you chase two rabbits, both will escape." At first, it struck me as concise and brilliant advice on the importance of focusing on a single goal--and it was advice I could surely use as my life, like yours, often seems to be built of the things left undone rather than the ones I've managed to achieve. Maybe it's just more wishful thinking, but I've come to think of it as defeatist and unnecessarily limiting advice. Life is not, after all, about catching rabbits, it's about enjoying the chase.

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