More Lessons from my Garden

With all the wonderful weather we’ve been experiencing this summer, my garden has been gloriously prolific. Likewise, the lessons it is teaching me are too rich to be contained in one blog post. Here’s the continuation of a previous week’s lessons.

Tomato Cages and Parenting

I planted three different tomato plants this year, one much taller than the others. I should have placed cages around them as soon as I removed them from their little containers and laid them in the ground. A month or more went by before I finally purchased cages. By then, the tallest one resisted the cage like a moody teenager resists curfew. In my attempt to force one of its branches through the cage, I broke it off completely, losing a couple of marble-sized tomatoes.

When the next windstorm came along, it blew that tall plant over, cage and all. (Hubby says I should have stapled the cage into the ground with long wires. Now he tells me.) Too late to force the crooked, wonky cage back into the ground, I was left with no choice but to set the plant free from it. Except by now, some of the thicker branches were entangled with the cage. It wouldn’t budge. Finally, I just held my breath and yanked the cage straight up, surrendering whatever branches might break off. This time, I lost several golf ball-sized tomatoes.

Oh, the plant is still alive. It’s still producing. But it has not been and never will be as healthy or productive as the plants given their cage while still small.

Little children want boundaries. They feel safe knowing what the rules are and knowing someone will enforce them. When healthy boundaries are set in place early on, humans can thrive and grow and become all they were meant to be.

If you wait too long and try to play catch-up later? You will be met with resistance. It will prove far more difficult, and you’ll do a lot more damage. It doesn’t mean the person can’t still be strong and productive, but unnecessary pain will be inevitable along the way.

A Little Each Day…

If you’ve ever gone away on vacation during a garden’s prolific period, you know the pain of returning home to overgrown weeds, overripe vegetables, and dehydrated plants. It can take you days to return things to order. Plus, you’re wasting what would have been perfectly good produce if you’d been home to pick it. Sometimes there’s no reviving a plant dead from thirst, starving for nutrients, or choked out by weeds.

 

This is why good gardeners do a little each day. From the day they till the soil until they’ve pulled out the last dead plant in preparation for winter, the devoted gardener is out there. Weeding, watering, thinning, fertilizing, harvesting, and cleaning out what’s finished are far easier when done daily, bit by bit. You’ll enjoy a much healthier, productive garden.

This is true for your soul as well. A little time devoted to scripture and prayer every day produces more fruit than church once a week or a spiritual retreat once a year. Don’t choke out your soul with neglect. The weeds will gladly take over while you’re not paying attention.

Greener Where you Water…

We’ve all heard it said that if the other man’s grass is always greener, it’s probably because he waters it. This becomes even more obvious after a dry spell when your lawn turns brown while the neighbor with the sprinkler system is still enjoying lush green turf.

The application to our lives and relationships hardly needs mentioning. Marriages, friendships, and family relationships dry up with neglect. Watering takes effort. Make the effort. ‘Nuff said.

Why Being a Writer Might Be Hazardous to Your Marriage

Marriages that include one writer can present unique challenges. One more obvious scenario is the non-writer finding his or her life on display, quirks and all, in books, articles, or blog posts. Another might involve the writer becoming lost in their own make-believe world instead of staying engaged in the present reality. Or the nonwriter feeling abandoned by the writer’s constant pull toward the writing desk for hours on end, often late at night or in the wee hours of the morning.

But the challenge I’ve only lately realized is the writer’s ability to re-write everyday conversations (in which the hero has fallen short in some way) into fantasy scenes where said hero proves so loving and considerate, her fantasy heroine cannot help but feel as cherished and precious as the writer longs to feel in real life. 

Here’s an example.

In the real-life scene, the married couple (let’s call them Bill and Susan) are driving home from church and discussing plans for the following morning. Susan, who normally walks to work, has been suffering from a sore knee and has not made the walk for a couple of weeks. She’s hoping to try walking again tomorrow, but she’s waffling—especially given the sub-zero winter temperatures. But Bill needs the car to drive to the city for an appointment. He offers to drop Susan off at work in the morning, but he won’t return for hours after Susan gets off, leaving her no way home. Should she try walking home in the cold on that bad knee? She’s not sure what to do.

“Well,” Bill says, “if you don’t want to walk, you can always take a four-dollar shuttle.”

Problem solved. Right? 

Maybe for Bill. But Susan is a writer. The next day as she limps home in the freezing wind, she rewrites the scene in her mind. If she were scripting a romantic novel in which she wanted readers to swoon over Bill, she might write the scene something like this:

Bill ran a hand through Susan’s hair and brought it to rest on her chin, lifting it slightly so he could gaze into her eyes. “Sweetheart, I don’t like the idea of you walking in this cold with that bad knee. Here.” She felt him slip something into her hand, folding her fingers around it. “Promise me that if you don’t feel up to walking, you’ll call for a ride. All right?” He kissed her forehead and waited for her nod before he pulled away. Susan opened her hand to discover a five-dollar bill and a phone number for a local shuttle company.

Fantasy Bill is now a hero. He has acknowledged that Susan is a grown woman capable of making her own decision. But he has also made her feel precious with his care and his kiss. She feels provided for with the money and the phone number. And she feels important to him. Chances are, she will choose to walk home anyway, but she will do so feeling loved and cherished.

Susan compares the scene in her mind to the real-life scene, and Bill comes up sadly lacking in the romantic hero department. Instead of feeling treasured, she interprets his solution the same as if he had coldly said, “Well, I need the car. So deal with it.” 

In fact, no matter how hard Bill tries, he is never going to meet the standards of the chivalrous fantasy heroes Susan is capable of conjuring. His words won’t sound as loving, or his sentences as cleverly constructed. For that matter, he’ll probably never be as smartly dressed or smell as sexy or work as hard or earn as much or…

You get the picture.

Meanwhile, real-life Susan laments the fact she can never measure up to the air-brushed, photo-shopped, youthful models smiling at her husband every day from billboards, magazines, and the internet. It’s not fair! her heart cries, not seeing that Bill is being dealt the same brutally unfair hand.

Maybe it isn’t just a writer thing. Maybe it’s a female thing. I don’t know, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.