Plant Your Own Garden

"Don't wait for someone to bring you flowers.

Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul."

Luther Burbank, American botanist and horticulturist

We’re almost through March, which I think is my least favorite month of the year. Spring breaks are happening, but the bare trees prove it’s not spring yet. Plants begin to pop up amidst the fear of a late freeze. The tease of one warm day is followed by a week of cold blasts of wind and rain. But spring eventually comes when it comes, with no regard for my patience or impatience.

I had a springlike experience this month when I made a trip to North Carolina to meet with a group of women who had read Hey, White Girl. I left on the heels of a stressful family event. I drove in blinding rain that took all my concentration. Even the swirling wind forced my head down when I refueled. But I arrived without incident. The sun came out. I even took a late afternoon walk on the beach.

When I met with this book club the next morning they made me forget about the trip down. They were eager to talk about the book, informed about the issues it presented, intelligent in their discussion of systemic racism, and revealed compassion in their responses. There was a sense of “spring” in them that worked like a “spring cleaning” in me: dusting out complacency and the weariness of such hard topics.

Maybe that’s why I like this quote. I can’t control the weather. I can neither hurry nor slow down the seasons. But I can plant a garden: in the ground, in my work, or in my soul. And once planted, I can tend it. It will have fallow seasons. But spring does come again.

Wishing you a fruitful gardening season, in whatever form that takes for you!