I should tend to my garden

I should tend to my garden.

Should pull up the weeds overtaking the bare patches of soil that I haven’t had time to plant.

Should remove the shoots from the plum tree that we felled this winter (it was dying), the shoots so hopeful to become the next capital p Plum Tree in our back garden.

Should thin out the nigella that re-seeded itself last year and is overtaking the pathway and growing in tangles with the mugwort.

And yet…

All of the capitalistic shoulds of productivity, of needing to feel accomplished, of checking off a to-do list to feel like a whole, complete person worthy of praise and attention.

All the shoulds of having something to show for your time, of orderliness and purpose, of organization and control and ‘just so’.

Something in my body violently rejects these shoulds as I sit in my garden contemplating the wild abandon growing up through the pathways, the plants that decided where they wanted to be despite my carefully curated beds and pathways, the conversation I am constantly having with the trees and shrubs and vines as we dance around who goes where and who deserves to stay or go, the give and take of amending soil for non-native species that “I just like because they're pretty’ and the low-impact planting of native species that love the soil just as it is and help to rebuild and restore this ecosystem that was once wild, then tamed and controlled, and is now becoming wild again.

Don't get me wrong - I can spend hours on my knees pulling grasses and clover and oxalis, gently separating the species I've deemed ‘weedy’ from the ones deemed important to steward and let grow. The meditation of deeply present garden care is one I take very seriously.

And there are some days, like today, in which my garden meditation is based on the exact opposite - of appreciation for the wildness that my garden has presented to me, of bafflement at the abundance of plants, of their ability to fill in unoccupied niches and cracks and crevices, of their audacity at finding a spot to thrive despite the busyness already around them. Of their unbridled need to grow and live and spread their seed for the next generation ahead. Of their disoccupation with segregation, of their embracing and entanglement of their neighbors, of their collective hallelujah.