Small Celebrations of Gardening, Revisiting a Post from 2007

 

In 2007, this was how I started a blog post in April about gardening. "I return to gardening year after year because of the small celebrations each and every day. It doesn't matter the size of the garden or what is planted, there are always changes, surprises, and celebrations on a daily basis."

Twenty six years later this is still true. I love garden beds that look pretty, but I also find pleasure in the day to day things that happen in the gardens. Today I spotted another daffodil bloom. I see it is already time to weed ( even if it was 23 degrees very early this morning). There are plants that need deadheading.  I am waiting for it to warm up a bit before I head outside, but I try to take my camera and capture small celebrations each day in the garden beds. 

In this same blog post in 2007 I went of say, "I am not a life-long gardener. I pulled weeds growing up sometimes. I appreciated the beauty of the flowers in my grandmothers' gardens. Fresh vegetables were a special treat when we visited relatives' houses that had large gardens. I dabbled with containers and annuals early in my adult life. When I turned forty and moved to KF I took on gardening in a  more serious way.

Now I live in a different house. I took a different approach to flower gardening at 514. I design more containers again, more perennials, and lots of bulbs. I have been fortunate to be able to move plants from Mom's garden beds next door and watch them continue to flourish at my house. 

The last thing I said in that original post was "gardening teaches you to pay attention." Each day I do a garden tour and look for new growth, grieve over a dead rose, or celebrate the blooming of a spring bulb. I pay attention to what is working and what shouldn't have been planted in a certain location.

It has warmed up a bit. It is time for the garden tour for today.  I will celebrate those small observations in the garden beds and pull of few weeds.

Near the Window

When I was young I always enjoyed it when my mother read poetry to me before I went to sleep. I also enjoyed it when teachers read poems aloud in class. I even loved to memorize poetry and stand up in front of the class and recite one the teacher assigned. When I reached junior high I used to go to the library and check out poetry books and read them upstairs in my room. Then I would borrow Mom's manual typewriter and type all the poems I loved. I wonder what ever happened to all those typewritten poems? My upstairs bedroom was my escape growing up and I created  memories reading, listening, and singing. Quite a few years ago I captured that time in my life in the poem below.

Near the Window

The lamp near the window glowed long into the night,
An intriguing plot kept me turning the pages.
Curling up with Nancy, Bess, and George
I created a life of adventure with mysteries to be solved.
I also picked up the books of poetry from the public library collection. 

I read the words. I saved the words, hunting and pecking  on the manual keys.

The stereo filled the hall room with beautiful sounds.
I wore out certain songs as I listened again and again.
I joined the Broadway cast of My Fair Lady and Oklahoma too,
and The Ray Conniff singers backed
me up on “Somewhere My Love.”
How many times could I repeat 

Three Dog Night singing “One”
While belting out the lyrics with a makeshift microphone?

Near the window I could breathe in spring,
In winter the panes frosted, then melted in a thaw.
If opened in summer a breeze gave a small reprieve,
The smell of burning leaves crept in at the closing of fall.

The neighbor kids gathered for Kick the Can
or Spoons, but
I cocooned myself in my bedroom upstairs.
Finding comfort near the window with my pile of books.                 

 And the collection of my favorite poems.

I still carry those words and can still recite the lyrical lines.
 l yearn to hear those familiar melodies when I
sit near the window in my childhood room.

 By Christy Woolum

 

Saving The Only Life I Could Save

 I love that there is a national focus on poetry each year in April. I love teaching students to read, apppreciate, and write poetry, I love immersing myself in the beauty of  poetry, and I love to remember the poetry my mother read me before I went to sleep at night. In celebrating poetry this month, this is one of my favorites. Why? In the last few years I have saved the only life I could save.

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver, from Dream Work

As I celebrate National Poetry Month for the next four weeks, what are some of your favorite poems?