Solar Flare

On planting a garden bed that has been crushing my soul.

This Summer has been full to the brim so far. There’s been lots of time spent with friends on picnic blankets in front yards, there’s been a lot of shows that felt once in a lifetime, and I’ve swam nearly every day the sun was shining. Those parts have felt good, but I’ve also wasted a lot of time in the past few weeks beating myself up over all the things I wish I was doing and all the things I felt like I should be getting done. 

If I’m going to put something off I don’t want to put it off because I’m droning over an Instagram feed, seeking dopamine and connection in places I’m not going to find it. No, if I’m going to procrastinate I want to do it poolside with a book in my hand, hopping in every hour or so to tread some water. I want to spend the summer gamifying moving my body and seeing how much ice cold fruit I can fit in my cooler bag. I want to sit on sweaty patios with friends I love, drinking tall glasses of ice water or Miller High Life stubbies and eating salty french fries. 

I’ve been feeling exceptionally guilty for the lack of attention my garden has received from me this year. My priorities have been elsewhere, but I really miss it. A lot of things volunteered from last year which is a rare treat, and a gift! But I had a full bed cleared for tomatoes and peppers and I really struggled to get anything planted in the ground. I’ve missed taking walks around my garden beds in the morning, seeing where the bees have fallen asleep and seeing what herbs desperately need me to chop them to go in eggs or summer salads. Most of the herbs are there, but I haven’t been doing my morning walks because I’ve felt so bad about the fact that I hadn’t planted the tomato bed, or gotten any peppers in the ground. It’s creeped into a lot of my days, and it’s made me have this overwhelming feeling that I’ve messed up. 

Defaulting to feeling like I’ve done something wrong is a remnant of a past life as an Evangelical Christian, and as per usual, it’s caused a pretty big mental block for me. I’ve been writing a lot and nothing has materialized in the ways I’ve wanted it to. Thousands of words are still pouring out, but nothing has felt substantial enough to be a newsletter. Most things came out as journal entries about how lousy I’m feeling and how determined I am to beat myself up despite every attempt to extend grace to myself. As an act of trusting the process I went back to the drawing board. 

On Saturday I started the process of getting some late season tomato starter plants as a hail mary. I really wanted them, I was tired of feeling bad over what would amount to an hour or two of work (wow how wrong I was about that) and I was going to try to make it happen.

It didn’t happen, and the process continued to drag out. Yesterday I decided that maybe this year was not the year for the garden. I did my best to let it go, and I cried about it in the bathroom of my coworking space. I know that I can’t do everything, but I’m trying to get good at giving myself the things that I want. I’m trying so hard to make that the priority. By giving up on the summer garden this early in the season I felt like I’d failed. 

This morning, on the way back to that very same coworking space, I caught a text from a local farmer (who is also a drummer, he’s very cool) who had left some tomato and pepper plants on his front porch for me. I changed course and was on his doorstep in about 10 minutes picking up plants with names like Solar Flare and Pineapple Ground Cherry.

So instead of writing this newsletter this morning, instead of struggling to pull words out of my brain and find something beautiful (or poetic, or at the very least interesting) to say here, I planted my tomato and pepper bed. It was work I absolutely did not want to be doing, but I decided to take a gamble on just doing it anyway to see how I’d feel.

I am writing this now, with little speckles of dirt under my fingernails that refused to dislodge themselves after a good scrubbing. I am still sweating from shoveling, planting and watering in my beautiful two rows of plants. But, I do feel like a weight has been lifted.

I trusted my gut when I turned left instead of right off the exit, heading towards the farmer’s house instead of my coworking space. In doing so I got my plants in the ground and my words in your inbox. 

I look forward to returning to my writing practice tomorrow with the attitude of trying something new, and I look forward to reading the words the fall out of me now that I have a garden that feels more complete.

---

Thank you for your support. It means the world to me that you’d continue to extend the invite into your internet living room. The newsletter means a lot to me and I am consistently thrilled to learn that it means something to other people. Let’s say for a second that you like what you see here and want to continue the support. In that case, you can do one (or more!) of the following:

• Give this post a like and leave a comment!

• Send me a message.

• Consider becoming a paid subscriber. I love writing this newsletter, and I love keeping it in front of the paywall. Optional paid subscriptions support me and keep this a sustainable part of my creative life while keeping it free for the masses.

• Forward this email to a few friends who would enjoy it.

• Follow me on Instagram!