I want to tell you about my Garden Lady, but it’s hard to know where to start. We all have experiences that give us memories, and memories that become stories, and stories that become actions, and actions that become experiences, and experiences that become memories… and so it goes.
There’s no way to start at the beginning, so I’ll start where I am today. In my garden, with the birds, the rising sun, a gentle breeze, the flow the ocean of traffic, and some thoughts that are asking to be words.
My Garden Lady isn’t just one person. Somedays she’s one particular garden lady, but others, she’s a weaving of Garden People I’ve met in my life. She’s the smell of tomato leaves being watered in summer. She’s the welcoming of lilac blooms at sunrise. She’s the bright glow of forsythia in Spring. She’s open blinds facing East at sunrise. She’s comfortable bench. She’s the quiet in my soul. She’s the chime of my heartsong. She’s the chirp of a conversation.
My Garden Lady was in heaven long before she got there. Content. Accomplished. Productive. Patient. Welcoming. Accepting. Encouraging. Tenacious. Omnipresent.
I honor her today, and all days, in telling her story. In living in her world where gardens are for beauty, reverence, sustenance, patience, gathering, working, and growing.
Working in patient care, especially earlier in my career, it was too easy to lose track of the life experience sitting before me in each person I met. I had a focus: fixing, curing, treating. If a problem arose, escalating, sounding the alarm, getting help. I love and loved my patients, I tried to make time for conversations and getting to know the person, not just the diagnosis, care plan, interventions, assessment, reassessment. Somedays it was effortless; others I wish I could go back and figure out how to get someone a good brisket when it seemed to be all he wanted, but I didn’t understand that yet.
My work is in trying to understand. The people coming through my clinical work, my personal work, my spiritual work. Even if it means I just don’t get to understand. I can just let them be. And myself. And have patience, understanding, gratitude, and grace… to meet people for the first time, again and again. The patience to witness the unfolding of their growth. The understanding that who they were yesterday is different than who they are today. The gratitude to walk that journey together. And the grace to accept that they’ll do the same for me.
My Garden Lady was contentment.
She was love, patience, and understanding.
She took the time to share a poem with me, and recited it again and again so I could capture it on paper when memory failed me.
So, in closing, here is a poem from one Garden Lady:
The warmth of the sun for pardon The song of the bird for mirth One's heart is closer to god in the garden Than anywhere else on Earth.
Love,
Jessie
PS — I incidentally finished recording at 6:22 on 6/22/22. Oooooh I love that!!
PPS — The hawk went somewhere else to find breakfast, the squirrel is now safely running across my neighbor’s fence.
My Garden Lady