I was listening to an National Public Radio program yesterday.
The discussion was how gardening is an "aerating filter" and a "lens
sharpener" about life and all its fascets. Maybe that's why, as an avid
amateur gardener, I like to use my garden as analogy and metaphor of my
teaching. I can borrow from my garden to help my teaching grow.
I was grounded by the boss these past few mornings. Too cold. It
was back down into the high twenties. Not today. Goosebumby low forties!
I was out as fast as whatever comes to mind. Four miles in forty-four
chilly minutes. After my return, as the sky grayed, I went on my usual
morning "garden patrol" to see what I had successfully protected against
the icy air blanket that has been coming and going over my yard this past
week. I know what one of the writers meant when he said that if you focus
on one area of the garden, you can see what has changed overnight. I've
been watching my newly planted roses. Along the driveway, I have been
desparately covering them with black garbage bags at night to protect them
against our late freeze's attempted death blow and uncovering them so they
won't roast in a hot house effect. A white plastic tent, taped to the
dogwood trunk, looks like a Mothra like tent catipillar cocoon, as I
struggled to protect the amarylis field from this freeze's last swipe. In
the back yard, the wrapped huge phildenrons look like something out from
the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
Ah, now that winter is coming to an end, it is beginning to feel
and look like winter. Runny, stuffy noses, reddened eyes adorn the
classrooms. Hacking coughs resound across the campus. Chilly. Windy.
The cold snap has left the ground bare. Everywhere my gardens look like
they are in ruins. The early Azalea flowers have the look of tiny balls
of crumpled crepe paper. A white powdery frost covers the line of rabbit's
ear. The stalks of individual blooming amarylis, deceived by the early
warmth and lulled out from their slumber, now are sadly deflowered.
Blackened and colorless spider plant hang limp and lifeless. Twiggy grape
vines strangle the uprights of the percola. Frost-bitten regal lillies
leaves are draped in drooping, mushy clusters. Shriveled and browned
African daisies sag defeated. Leafless woody sticks of old echinea and
Autumn rudibeckea stems topped by empty starburst seedpod protrude from
undug beds. The bare, stick-like branches of the dogwoods are distant
from the time they were blossoming with south Georgia "snow. The dazzling
leafs of Persian Shield are crumbled. All are memories of last spring and
summer's glorious color.
They may be memories. They are also promises of next spring and
summer. And so,I have to honor the heart of heartless winter. It is not,
as a poet reminded me, a seasonal shank. It is not a period of death. It
is not a period of darkness. It is not a somber season. It is not a
season that doesn't belong. It isn't a dormant season. There is beauty in
the sublime and subtle. A dark, cold winter day can be just as beautiful
as a warm, sunny, summer day.
We told that this is a time of rest. And yet, there is
restlessness; it is a time of preparation; it is a time of anticipation.
Beneath the surface, it is a time of life. As an avid gardener, in the
midst of this cold I have to have warm visions. With a faith, hope, and
belief in the coming Spring and Summer, I am rooting, tilling, nurturing,
toiling, trimming, planting, transplanting, seeding, culling, and
crafting.
In the midst of the colorless, I have to see that priceless,
special colorful magic is occuring. My patrols are exercises in noticing.
I look around in awe and can see, if I look for it, all of the possible
colors that will soon explode. In the midst of the shriveled, I see a
swelled engagement in life. I can see slight evidence of seedlings poking
out from the ground. I had a feeling of being overjoyed this morning at
the goosebumps peppered my skin. At first glance everything seems in
discouraging stasis. And yet, everything is moving joyfully forward. I
walked through what I saw was a vast field of an unimaginable amount of
potential, of hidden becoming, of secret process, of silent opportunity,
of subtle growth, of sublime change.
I suppose I could complain about the freeze and feel sorry about
myself that my garden wouldn't be as glorious as it could have been. Of
what value would that be. The freeze reminds me that if I want magic to
occur every day in my garden, I have to work at working magic. The freeze
doesn't matter. It is how I deal with it that does. Running from the
challenge of the freeze would only yield excuses, blames, and regrets. I
suppose I could have stayed in the comfort of the fire that blazed in the
den and merely bought some replacement plants. I am not sure I really
would have been comfortable with doing that. I don't think that would
have lasted too long. Too much comfort can smother my life as a gardner.
And, there are many times, as this freeze reminded me that I have to
unwrap myself in order to wrap the plants, that I have to step up to
commitment, that I have to help make it happen, and not merely plan or
dream or wish about or watch or look forward to or look backward at or
talk about or criticize.
Yeah, I suppose I could have been annoyed at having to cover the
newly planted rose bushes in the chilling darkness with cold, wet hands
that began to numb, to bag individual amaryllis stalks, to struggle to
decide how to protect seedlings, to fashion those plastic cocoons. But,
why waste all that energy being annoyed and feeling unpleasant when I can
see how all that effort will give me a fuller, genuine experience of
gardening that is much more valuable and fulfilling than the empty
pleasures and temorary comforts of buying fully grown plants from some
garden shop. The freeze in a way made gardening this year more exciting.
The freeze merely strengthens my commitment and perseverence to the
garden. It won't be an empty trinket this season. The garden, I assure
you, will be more rewarding. The sense of accomplishment will be greater.
The sense of gain larger. How do I know? In the midst of this
dreariness, as I unwrapped the protective covering there are about me
signs of coming magnificance if I look for them: the Gallaridia and
Echinechea seedlings in my cold frame, a cluster or two of green leaves of
a peeking Asian lilly tightly hugging the ground, new spines forming on
the rose bushes, the clumps of Daylillies. They all tell me that in the
midst of the winter's chill, I should not dismay.
All this demands that in this chill I be warmly optimistic about
summer's coming warmth. These are for me a few lessons from the garden.
I can't only focus on the garden I desire. I have to focus on the efforts
necessary to make it a reality. So many of us cringe and shiver and
complain in the chilling, dead of colorless winter in each student rather
than see the vibrant potential of colorful birthing spring in each of
them.
I just got hit with a thought as I thought I finished. It's not
the beautiful garden I want. That I can get by hiring a landscape
architect. That's like getting something for nothing. Emptiness. What I
want is to be a good gardener. After all, the garden can be taken away by
a freeze, a dry spell, a fungus, an insect, a critter. But, my efforts to
be that good garden does not depend on them. My strength, confidence,
belief, hope, faith, commitment, perserverance and love to be a gardener
will always be with me. Maybe that's the true lesson of the garden this
freeze has for my teaching.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
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