Making Due

Most of my life I have made due.  As a child when my mother purchased clothes for me, I wore them without question.  Most of my furnishings I took from my grandmother’s house when she downsized - a mishmash of things that for the most part are utilitarian.  When I purchase something for the house, I will usually take the cheapest route, believing my frugality is more important than the ease of doing something with the right tool.  I work easily within a world of delayed gratification because my present situation is always good enough.

Rather than reach high and put a foundation beneath my dreams, I will take a softer and safer landing by living a shadow life that is easily graspable. Because of my pragmatism, I’ve been unable to heed Gandhi’s simple advice - live your morality.  Instead, I live in a world of justification and unnecessary compromise.

Part of this make due attitude is that at heart I'm a contrarian.  I believe or trust in very little about our consumer lifestyle.  Yet, I do my share of excessive consuming.  I live in a nice neighborhood but not a spectacular one.  All of us have vast yards, most with nothing but grass that is delightfully manicured. Some use chemicals and some don't.  Behind our house the woods have been leveled and acre by acre are being transformed into a subdivision.   I see all of it as a folly or a paean to ego, including my own. 

 

Since I was twenty-five I wanted to own a farm - to me it’s the directness of agrarian life that calls me.  Yet, I've never worked on a farm and lack the skills or knowledge that would make such a transition easy:  I don't understand soil; I'm not mechanical; and I can easily say that I’ve not completed a week of hard physical work in nearly thirty years.  There are times when I wonder if having a farm is really some metaphor or an escape from an average white collar life.   Either way, it would be disingenuous to deny this soul calling.  

 

In the Winter 2014 Yes! magazine there is an interview with Vandana Shiva.   She says:

 

No matter what problem you look at, every ecological problem comes from this illusion that we are separate from nature.

 

Her quote addressed the macrocosm, but she speaks exactly from my point of longing.  

 

With the shortened daylight I lament that my work hours are spent in a home office, in a car, or in a building.  The separation of my life to nature - even with my commitment to a garden and yard work - remains vast.  I am still more inside than out.  I tend to think of relaxation as being in front of a screen than in the backyard.     

 

I have been gardening for fifteen years.  I have no illusions about my skills or my commitment to gardening - both are quite spotty.  Yet, I also understand that each year I take to the garden with the hope this year will be better - and see my garden’s winter vision fully realized. 

Most of it is in my realm of my control:  my commitment to the process and creating an environment to make the process easier.  

Yet, I seldom put myself in a position to succeed: I’ve purchased drip hoses but will not use them; I allow the wheelbarrow to sit uncovered in the rain and rust; I let the weeds overrun the garden; and this summer I didn’t stake my tomato, eggplant, or pepper plants.  While all of them grew, the tomato harvest suffered the most.  Pounds of tomatoes rotted in a tangle of vines and weeds.  Fresh tomatoes, the reason alone to garden, became compost for next year’s garden.  

Next spring I will turn over the soil, rake out the weeds, and put seed in the ground. In the past none of it was done with real attention because in my heart I always know that my income or my food is not at risk.  This half-assedness is a fantastic way to sabotage myself; and it provides another soft landing, cushioned with excuses.  I’m sure I could use an hour or two of therapy why I continue this behavior that stops me short of nurturing a vision literally into fruition.

 

Any serious gardener knows that most of the work is done before sowing seeds.  Building soil and having the infrastructure in place make following executing a plan easier.  This is why this year I am going to integrate chore calendars from www.waldeneffect.org  or www.awaytogarden.com.  

While I may not have the best garden, I can at least accept that gardening is in my heart.  I have passed the point where any purchases are about the lifestyle or image of gardening.  Every time I set foot out there, even with a tangle of weeds, I feel better.

 

Last week I was reading the www.waldeneffect.org blog on their hoop houses.  It was a small detail in the picture - they had all of the re-bar in a plastic bucket - while they determined which garden to cover.  It reminded me how much of my own work is done in the maelstrom of disorganization.  For me to do any project often means going to any number of places to get either tools or materials.  Further, none of it is greatly respected.  The shovel edge needs sharpening and the pots are just strewn wherever I last utilized them.  I leave the wheelbarrow and grill to the elements.  It disrespects the entire process and the tools.

 

As I plan for late winter seeds starts with grow lights and utilizing my small hoop house, I need to have an infrastructure ready to go.  Without the strong bones of it, it is impossible to succeed.  It is a way for me extend a season and find something useful to do when it’s freezing cold.

In the end I’m talking about investment in myself.  There are the outer signs - having the right tools to do the job and taking care of them.  It’s having the organization, the necessary bones that are nurtured in the down time.  It is about engaging in a life, not a lifestyle.  Seeds are meant to sprout and need little help to fulfill their biological destiny.  The same can be said for humans.