I have been in Deep Work mode on my book and TV work, surfacing only to tend to my indoor plants and new garden beds. Gardening is healing, humbling, and it is hard work. Each morning after gardening, I wake with heavy arms, sore hips or knees groaning in protestation, with that pleasant ache from being useful.
I have broken fingernails, and my old sneakers smell like dead carp. I\’m a catch, I\’ll tell you that much!
I have been watching Monty Don and Garden Answer videos on Youtube and reading how to winter prune my pomegranate tree. I am looking forward to feeding the ferns in a few weeks and watering in the new yellow Angel Trumpet Tree. It is soulful work, and a productive meditation. I plan books, TV show ideas, character arcs, and poems while I dig and weed.
It feels like important work. Encouraging the bees and butterflies to pollinate in the Spring. Creating shade for bugs and rest tops for snails. All God\’s creatures and so on.
I am what my younger self would consider boring now. I like to nest, and feather, nurture and muse. I like to create and shore up. Sleeping is a sport in which I now excel. My life is slower but deeper, filled with words and flowers and warmth and order.
Yesterday I was wishing for Spring, so I could see my garden become more exciting and abundant. Then I read a quote by Rumi.
\”And don\’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It\’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.\”
This is also me. My life looks quiet and slow and somewhat boring, but underneath it all, the ideas are riotous!
Sending nurture and love.