Eden

My Real Garden: four unruly tomato plants that pulled their cages down like petulant children, purple and sweet basil minding themselves, a behemoth zuke mound attempting world domination, silent aloe vera quietly being crushed by said tomatoes, twelve leeks rigidly fattening for four different pots of my turnip soup come autumn.

My Spouse Garden: one hardy geranium that blooms continually despite lack of water and care. It's not my fault. It has been the summer of church service. We're still planning on celebrating our June anniversary before Christmas.

My Daughter Garden: A tweeny, leafy something growing exponentially that prefers to have no gardener. My mom said this is normal and that if she doesn't hit this social phase she'll never leave home someday. I hate being trumped by walks to the pool with friends or BFF trips to U-Swirl. Lameness.

My Sister Garden: Nine plants. This one requires a lot of estrogen and produces a lot of estrogen.

My Neighbor Garden: Several plants I was tending are gone, new ones took their place, I have to figure out the new care plan. The old plants are thriving, beaming, gone to seed. Maybe one fertilizer suits them all?

My Girlfriends Garden: Scarcely seen once a month.

My Long-Distance Friend Garden: Seen even less. A text here and there. I am a really bad caretaker of long-distance plants. Not my gift.

My Personal Sanity Garden: Split in three sections: Body, Spirit, Mind. I planted a Six Pack and Firm Rear variety in the Body section...that one died. The Spirit is thriving. The Mind is, too. Two out of three ain't bad. The picture above is the bulletin board containing snippets and reminders of all the things I want to make someday. Someday. When it's raining and I can't work in the garden. "Someday" can also be termed "when school starts."

My gardening method? The Impromptu Method. Each day I feel a heavenly whisper telling me which garden I can afford to leave and where I should cultivate more effort.

It is an ebb and flow, a tug-of-war between selfishness, mothering and sainthood to leave what I want to tend in order to quiet the promptings inside.

I am spraying Round-up on the Thorny Guilt Weed that pricks my pride by proclaiming that all of my gardens should thrive simultaneously. That is not truth. No woman can do this. That weed will slowly die, I will smooth salve onto my calloused hands and I will sleep. I cannot tend Eden unless I am tended to.

In Eden there is a difference between surviving and living. So it is with me.