Gardening as Meditation

Thoreau wrote, “Time is but the stream I go fishing in.” Never mind that he lived in his mother’s back yard, about as independent as any basement dwelling youth of today.  Time is but the place and space we make of it, and any day is a good day for building memories.  Some are better than others; some are down-right painful.  But by picking the better ones to keep close to our hearts–even when they dwell right next door to the painful ones–we can keep on going.

I awoke with hope, and a little trepidation.  My youngest son was planning to come visit; but by evening, we had come to the mutual agreement that neither of our budgets were going to support plane tickets at this time.  Not so many years ago, a blow like this would have eaten up my happiness till I could not function.  Instead, we comforted each other with reminders that there are those modern inventions called telephones, and MySpace to leave pictures…and let it go.

I’ve made a habit, since getting a digital camera, of carrying it about with me.  It’s a great way of capturing grandkids unawares, or just catching a special shot that would have been missed if a trip had to be made to get equipment.  After hanging up the phone, I got out the camera to harvest the day’s pictures.

With the current shape of the economy, I’ve been devoting quite a bit of time to planting things.  Today, I weeded out the mint bed, planted Stevia and lettuce seed. The morning air was clear and bright, cheerful with birdcalls.  In the distance, the church bells rang out.  Automobile sounds reminded that humans were also stirring about.

A mother robin feasted on the tiny ornamental strawberries that grow all over my lawn.  Sadly, they are not the delectable sweet strawberries of my childhood; while edible, they taste rather like water.  Mama Robin didn’t seem to mind.