I give praise that even in the darkness of the winter, I now see that green comes from the soil again; that even in the dryness of decay, beneath there is richness and loam; that in solitude self imposed, there is friendship which awaits; that in the touch of the earth upon my hands there is again hope, again relief from the nameless despair which has covered my eyes like a long winter night.
Give me strength to enter into the labyrinth of this garden, a maze without walls or pathways that leads to a centre I still as of yet am unable to know, but must have faith to believe will one day lay before me. Help me to undertake the planting and sowing, weeding and tilling, moving of stones, culturing of waters, as I would know how to within the walls of my own inner garden, my own mind.
Order the beginning, direct the progress, and perfect the achievement of my work. You who are true God and true man, and live and reign for ever and ever.
It’s been a long while since I’ve actively posted. That, in part, has to do with a case of optical rectitis that I was suffering from…read shitty outlook on life….and partially because once the snow hits, everything here freezes. The compost is composting, the leaves and branches and things in the beds are folded over and nicely rotting away, providing much needed nourishment to the soil come spring. The Stokes Seed Catalogue showed up two weeks ago and sent shivers down my spine, and the amaryllis has just opened flower number four. Simple flowers the size of cake plates the colour of watermelon bleeding into the green rind of the petals as they close close to the stem. The other 4 amaryllis have yet to even peek out of their bulbs, which gives me hope of additional flowers.
Something I long forgot about was that gardening in winter doesn’t have to be restricted to dirt. I cleaned up a 55 gallon fish tank last week-end, a job I’ve been putting off for (see above reason, optical rectitis), and because baking and cooking with a slow cooker seemed to pass the time with more grace than scrubbing three months of fish fecal out of gravel. But the monumental job of doing it is done, less than an hour later, and I find myself with new LED lights and a power filter for a tank 25 gallons bigger than the one it’s on.
Thus began the addiction and the indulgence of indoor aquatic gardening, having just sunk $60 and change into plants, including a dwarf lotus, which will be leaving from Winnipeg Monday morning and arriving via Canada post hopefully by Wednesday.
The other thing crossing my mind is the value of being a hermit. Good grief. Yes, there are contemplative and meditative issues with this, but sometimes something comes along your way that requires some additional contemplation. A hermit is only as good as the community they belong to, which at the surface may seem somewhat an odd statement to make. But even the desert fathers had to come in and share a communal meal, as well as take Communion and worship as members of a community. We’re only as good as the company we keep, and the commitments and times that we spend with that company. My mess begins when I shut everyone and everything out. My victories begin when I open myself to the possibility of companionship on all kinds of levels, without expectation, and just allow the fertile garden to grow.
Which is a really nice, really complicated way of saying I hope he calls.
I realized today it’s almost been two months since I’ve blogged anything about the yard! There is a really good reason for this, namely that I’ve spent the last few weeks tinkering, not working as intensively, but sitting back and just soaking it all in. I wrote in my journal a few weeks ago about how when I am there and just listening, sitting, sipping iced tea, reading, the world just disappears and time seems to slow down around me (the problem being it seems to speed up around everyone else!).
I’ve yanked a lot of the vegetables out already. The peas didn’t perform very well and about five days ago I realized that they’d all but dried up, so I pulled them up at took out the cedar stakes. The house plants on the “writing desk” now “expensive but functional plant stand” are all doing what they should: waxy green leaves and lush new growth. The few plants I inherited are slowly starting to come back to life. Took out more carrots, the last of the beets (which didn’t perform well either), three new radishes (which are going to end up as compost I fear), and am watching the onions that may not make it to the frost. Then again, I did plant them about a month ago so they might over winter.
I had about an hour and a half today and was wanting to mow the grass after collecting veg and some seed from the amaranth (btw, if anyone wants some seed for this incredible Hopi food dye, let me know. I suspect I’m going to have oodles of seed once I’m done collecting.) except that I was once again swarmed.
Swarmed. By mosquitos that don’t care that I’m wearing one of the highest most toxic content repellants along side one of those con fangled insect repellant pagers. I don’t ever remember them being this small, this aggressive, or this much of a pain in the ass! I have a routine where I show up at the house, enter the garage, spray on some repellant, go back out, and start watering. As soon as the water hits the ground the start to swarm up, hungry, angry. I’m a meal! I mean, I’ve heard about payback and sharing with the natural world, but these guys are painful! And I should know pain! The end of July a wasp came and landed on the back of my neck and took a chunk of skin out of my neck. That hurt, but it didn’t hurt enough for me to moan. These mosquitos just make it more pleasurable to stay indoors.
A friend from Facebook posted something to do with fall that made me shudder and swear, until I read through it. It said something about the beautiful fall colours in the leaves, the pumpkins, the warm autumn nights, being able to wear sweaters again, and the mosquitos all die and go back to hell where they belong.
I agree.
The other thing that happens when you sit and read and contemplate is you realize that as you begin to dig, things change and morph around you. I’ve spoken about how the garden takes on a life, a spirit of it’s own, and the gardener becomes a part of that spirit–a co-creator–rather than a distinct and separate part. I’m realizing that where I dug flower beds is only the beginning, that to capitalize on the full sun and the pond I need to surround it with flower beds. Which means that September will bring two big jobs: digging a lot more grass out, and mowing out the compost pile so I have something to cover the perennials that already went in. Along with that, the vegitable garden either has to shrink because of the spruce trees in the west part of the yard, or move forward either closer towards the pond or right into the front yard. But there’s got to be a driveway put in first, and winter, and lots of time to think and plan and plot about ways I can reduce the amount of mosquitos in my yard.
I will say this: sitting in the cool of the evening, watching as the dragonflies in mid and late July came out to feast, then later and now the bats (which I’m very fond of), there are some upsides to having so many of the little pests around. I’m just not liking the not being able to be there without having to swat.
Next blog post: the hash pipes and beer cans that keep appearing in my yard from next door.
Today when I arrived I found corn nuts on my desk. Oh yeah, I’ve got a desk in my garden now. Which I know may seem strange for some people, and I know it doesn’t quite fit in the space, but I’m able to write here now; I suppose I could have a buffet here as well, or put up one very short person on a very, very firm bed.
Yes, corn nuts on my desk. And holes in my bonsai tree soil. A squirrel has decided to use them as a larder for his stash…or her stash…and I guess I can get used to it. See, the birds have also decided to make a meal of what few peas I have. That I don’t mind. I’ve actually become quite accustomed to having the birds around. The pond is bringing droves of sparrows, at least 12 that I can count, song birds, robins, grackles, morning doves, a couple of large and small wood peckers, and a sea gull that’s circling. I think it might be eyeballing the gourami that I put into the pond. A tropical fish in a garden pond. Bright red among the green to go with the bright red cast-iron Japanese lantern that was my fathers’. Just a couple of weeks and the pond is showing signs of life.
The plants are in bloom and I’m noticing that there are definite paths in the grass, which mean there are definite places where I’m walking more than others, which means I’m creating outlines for new flower beds next year. I’m realizing that there will be much less grass in this yard and I’m ok with that, although David is a bit miffed that the fire pit has been replaced with a water pit. I’m sure he’ll get over it.
Nothing is beating the taste of baby carrots tugged with little effort from the fertile soil, or that wonderfully sexy taste of new potatoes covered in melted butter and boiled with the first harvest of tender, earthy green beans. The second batch of radishes is just about ready, and the two that I left in the ground for seed are becoming very large. They’ve out grown the beets which are close to being ready to pull out. The onions are fattening, and the second rows I’ve put in are sprouting again which means we should have green onions for a labour day barbecue.
I’ve been thinking about the fence, that is, a fence with a gate to block off the view of the garden from the street level. I’ve also been thinking about what exactly to do with the front yard. Right now it’s a neglected green space.
I’m also shocked to see that it’s not rabbits eating the beet greens. As I write this, the sparrows have landed and are chomping through the beet tops. And the swish chard. And one just flew at my head warp speed and swerved at the last minute. I had a mental image just now of myself, flat on my back, with a sparrow sticking out of my forehead.
High summer in the city in the garden. You can’t beat it, especially accompanied with a glass of iced tea mixed from water out of the garden hose.
Dad mentioned today that he wanted some pictures of the garden in it’s current state. It’s still really a work in progress, but let’s face it: the real defining quality of a garden is that the gardener is growing and changing as much through the garden as the gardener deludes him or herself into thinking they are the one doing the changing. It’s symbiotic. That’s my big word for the day. So here are a few pictures of the updated garden.
The dirt from the pond obviously needed to go somewhere, as well as the sod. What I did was to take the sod, turn it upside down and make a grass sandwich with the existing grass. This is going to do two things: it’s going to kill the grass that is compacted together, and it’s going to create a really good compost once that’s done. I took the last of the rocks that appeared by the garage and lined the bed. The dirt is about three inches deep and is shaded by the lilacs, perfect for the hollyhocks that I seeded here. Will be putting in some annuals to give it some colour as well as shade out the seeds as they germinate. Come August/September, I’ve got a package of delphinium seeds that I’ll mix into this bed as well.
Some of the weeds are actually pretty attractive and I’ve been encouraging the native heathers and chamomiles to continue to grow. Hard to see them because they look like little light bursts on the fence.
So Dad had an old cast-iron Chinese lantern that’s been around for at least as long as I have (so that’s at least 44 years old if not older….holy crap)…to punch it up beside the pond, I spray painted it with a rust-protecting paint bright red. Cherokee red would’ve been preferred (just because of that damn Frank Lloyd Wright addiction I can’t seem to shake), but the red wagon colour is about as close, if not exact, as I can get. And I’m loving how the red amaranth (Hopi) is contrasting against the other perennials. The pond is going slightly green because of algae, but the addition of some more plants, and the continued grown of the water hyacinth will help to provide more shade and reduce that issue. There is a resident in the pond along side the multitude of water beetle that just appeared almost overnight. I got a rainbow gourami (yes, a tropical fish!) and put him in there. They’re members of the labyrinth fish family, surfacing to take a gulp of air every so often, so as a tropical fish they’re well suited to stagnant ponds. There’s not water circulation as of yet, but I may get a small pump and put it in to help deal with the algae. Then again, I might end up with $150 worth of water lilies and some snails…..
Beans and peas actually have very delicate, very beautiful flowers.
The plants around my little make-shift bench are starting to flower as well. The geraniums are glad to be out from under the grow lights, and there are still several house plants that I have to crate up and move over.
I try to picture the house with the pine boards and cedar shakes, the darker roof, and a fence enclosing the space from the street view and suddenly realize that this is, very slowly, becoming a very cottage garden. I have a hope that within a year or two I’ll be able to try and get into New Dance Horizon’s “Secret Garden Tour” but we’ll have to see.
Being gay, you would think that as soon as the month of June rushes in I would be even just a little bit excited about the Pride festival.
When I was in my early twenties, I decided I needed to make a change, make some new friends, and maybe do some good. I joined the Pride Committee. Back then, it was a group of people who volunteered their time and energies to create a really kick-ass festival. We also did things like challenge government stereotypes: not many people remember this, but an NDP provincial government under then premier Roy Romanow refused to declare Pride week. We actually had to take the provincial government to the human rights tribunal to get a declaration. Co-incidentaly, many people don’t realize it was actually the government of Grand Devine, a *gasp* dare I say conservative government, that initially made inroads into LGBT equality in the labour force in…wait for it… the 1980’s. I was really into it not only because it felt like politically I was working for change, or that I was actively working to organize events and help put together the first ‘legal’ parade in Regina, but because I was meeting all kinds of people, making all kinds of friends, and floating on a high of what I was able to accomplish with the help of those friends. Which makes it sound like I did it all, when in fact i was actually just a minuscule part of a bigger team that did it without any organizing principle except getting the job done (and if we turned a small profit we could turn back into the next festival the following year, coolio).
After three years of mc-ing the flag raising, marching in the parades, getting tables and chairs set up for the dance at the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre, talking to reporters, I (and I suspect everyone else on Pride) burnt out. Without missing a step, the local group at the GLCR picked up the gauntlet and continued the tradition. In that aspect, it’s a real show of what community is about when the celebration is important enough to keep it going without any need to ask.
So I find myself, 20 years later, thinking now. Having watched event announcements for the week of festivities, realizing I can’t make half of them because of work, and not being able to make the other half because I just can’t drag myself out of the house that I’m living in…(taking care of this dog is another blog post in itself)…I find myself wondering why it is I don’t really have a sense of pride in being gay anymore. I fired off an e-mail to the current committee saying that I would love to volunteer. I thought to myself, all you need to do is get involved again and you’ll be meeting people, making friends, and gaining back some of that community spirit that you seem to have lost! Except after the volunteer co-ordinater got ahold of me to ask me what t-shirt size I took, I found myself wanting to not volunteer anymore. Lucky for me, I never heard back from anyone. I guess they didn’t really need volunteers after all.
But at the heart of this post isn’t anything I did before, or anything I’m seeing now: why is it, when I look at myself in my 43 year old body, do I not feel the sense of pride in being gay that I once did?
When the committee I belonged to dissolved, I slowly drifted away from anything community related. I stopped going to the bar after a disastrous relationship with a disastrous drag queen (again, like the dog, another post all together!), stopped hanging out with my friends in the community in Saskatoon. I went to Divas so much people thought I lived in Saskatoon! That not going back to Saskatoon had more to do with not wanting to run away from my problems here in Regina than anything else, and I think that might be the real key as to why I don’t feel pride anymore. When I stopped running away to Saskatoon and forced myself to start looking at the problems in my life that were making me unhappy, the need to run away disappeared. The friends I had there for the most part never really stayed in touch, which only emphasized that the decision I’d made was probably for the best. I miss Belinda especially, and there isn’t a day that goes by I wish I could reconnect with her.
I’m not ashamed of who I am. But what I do feel is a deep sense of gratitude to have been given this gift, and it is a gift, even though some days I feel so very alone. One day in my past, I’m not sure exactly when or exactly how, being gay stopped being what I was and became an integral part of who I am, a part of myself that I am humbled to have. Its not something I feel the need to flaunt anymore as much as treasure and honour by making good choices for myself.
Last night when I thought through how to write this post, I was going to say things like that festival now isn’t the same as the festival then, or that the energy now isn’t the same as the energy then. Although that might be true in some aspects that have no real bearing on the heart and soul of the festival, Pride is basically the same. I’m the one that has changed. The way I look at myself has changed. The sense of loneliness that I talk about comes not from not being able to have friends, or to want to socialize, or to date. It comes from the realization that the vast majority of people that I used to be able to relate to are no longer people I can relate to. I don’t belong to the community in the same sense that I did before. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m older, or because my outlook has changed. My sense of grief doesn’t come from being alone as much as it does in realizing that even if I wanted to come back into a place of being active in the community in the way I did before, I can’t. Firstly because there are younger fresher faces that are doing a fine job without my help, and secondly because you can’t put a square peg into a round hole.
I’m very grateful to have participated in an organization that helped in breaking down the shame that so many of us have had to deal with. When I think back, I realize I was actually part of a very small bit of our city’s history. That’s pretty cool! Being proud means being able to take joy from one’s accomplishments, for the hard work one has put into a life. Yes, coming out of the closet is an incredibly difficult journey for many, and people very likely still need to be told, even in 2015, that it’s ok to be gay. But it’s just one book on the shelf, and there are so many of those books that get overlooked because the rainbow book is so bright.
I’m proud of my accomplishments. My sexuality isn’t an accomplishment. It’s a component of the individual who’s written two novels, worked for 15 years at the same job, gone back to school after 20 years and landed high grades in some of the most challenging classes I (and others) have ever taken, grown an continue to develop a cottage garden, and make a really REALLY good cup of tea an honey.
I had no idea it’s been almost over a month since my last post. Every day, almost, without fail I’ve been entering this space and putting my creativity and my worry to constructive use. When I took this picture on Sunday and took a second look, I realized that my dreams of a cottage garden are well under way. This is in north Regina. It looks like its somewhere in the country. Mission accomplished.
The seeds that I got from my friend state-side stayed in the garage until this past week-end, when I took a look at what I had, thought long and hard about the current growing season as it stands, and asked myself if okra really has a chance in Saskatchewan. I planted it, along with some mustard greens, in between the two rows of carrots. I’m encouraged by other gardeners who’ve shared with me the carrots have either come up sporadically or not at all. I watered last night (the fiasco of water rationing here is for another post, and probably another blog, suffice it to say politics and water treatment do not mix) for a good two hours; when I came this afternoon, the middle of the garden was dry as a bone down to the middle knuckle on my middle finger. This is thirsty soil.
The peonies and the irises did not disappoint. The peonies are a really rich vanilla cream in the middle of almost pure white petals, it looks like a bowl that you could sink your teeth into and smells, unlike the peonies I brought from the old place, wonderful…almost like cinnamon. Where I was sure the irises would be blue, or dark purple, I was surprised to see purple mottle with bright sun kissed yellow. I’ve only seen this in the neighbourhood in one other location.
I pulled my first radish today, brought it home to my father like a prize. He was actually excited to see it. That just about made me cry. Seeded more radishes on the south side of the beans because in just a few days, I’m going to be able to pull and eat most of what’s growing. Monty Don wasn’t kidding when he said you can grow two to three crops of radishes in a season. Peas came up sporadically so I planted the rest of the packet in amongst the cedar poles I bought. I had put in sticks, just long twisted branches from the cedar that was pruned down out front, but I realized they looked unsightly, like great dead fingers reaching out of the soil, and the string that I had tied around them for supports couldn’t get tight so they all hung down sad, droopy. The cedar poles are attractive, and cedar is naturally resistant to water so they should last me a few years.
So I saw this bench idea on Pinterest, and since there’s plenty of cinder-crete blocks around I was able to toss six together with two pieces of wood from the renovation. It’s actually pretty comfortable! I’m slowly bringing my house plants from home and will be lining the waddle fencing on the “hidey hole” side (what I call my little sitting are). It’s big enough for one, or two if you’re not afraid to cuddle. I put a statue of St. Francis in behind it in the yearling lilacs and you can’t see it until you’re literally on the bench. It’s a secret that helps to bring me down when it comes into view. I do a lot of thinking and praying on this bench. Needs some paint but otherwise I’m really happy with the repurpose look.
I’m not so sure that the house will be ready now until the fall. But I’m certain that every day lily that I add into the border, the garden grows and becomes more cottage like. The one flowering almond that sat mid-veg garden was half diseased so I ended up cutting most of the adult growth back almost right to the ground. New growth is springing up from the base of the trunks since the spring, but something tells me there may be a pond in it’s place before August. I’m budgeting at least $350 for the liner and the plants that I’ll need to create the natural pond I’m wanting to make. Friend of mine with a farm, Susan, has told me that yes she does in fact have rock piles I can come and take from, and lots of cow manure I can take as well.
It isn’t so much pride that I’m taking in this space, although the process that it is becoming does fill me with a real sense of accomplishment that is becoming, developing, growing and almost mystical way. This is a prayerful place for me. I’m not sure if it’s that way for anyone else who visits, but I’ve heard at least one visitor say that it feels good to be in the garden.
A purple lama from the United States (read internet forum friend) just sent me envelope upon envelope of seeds, some of them I’ve never heard of, one of which (okra! OKRA!) I’ve never even thought to try growing! About 15 packets of seed, turnips, squash, cucumbers, mustards, chilis, greens, 4 different lettuces, I am on fire!
And FROST TONIGHT again.
Ok so it’s the night before Christmas.
Please Santa, can I have a dutch hoe in my stocking? I’ve been a pretty good boy generally….ok relatively….
I have two ways I can write this. I can write it from a philosophical perspective that very few people will be interested in, or continue to read once they see the word epistemological, or I can talk from the heart which is more difficult than writing philosophically because of the emotional charge.
I was planning on writing a post about gay marriage for a few weeks now, ever since the case came up to the US Supreme Court. But each time I began to write, I would end up three or four paragraphs in and realize it was sounding contrived, preachy, fake, or just plain boring. So I’d delete the blog post and think that I would come back to it with some more thoughts. Then yesterday, while reading through some posts on a Facebook group I belonged (past tense) to, I came across what would be thought of in an evangelical sense to be a compassionate response to gay marriage, or “practicing” being gay. I found myself in a situation where the philosophical stands I once seemed to embrace so willingly were suddenly challenged.
I went to work, started sweeping/washing the floor, and decided to think it out.
First off, why am I continually drawn back to Christian faith even though there seems to be an apparent contradiction between what I believe and what most churches typically believe as the doctrine of the sin of homosexuality? This is a tough question to answer and I’m not sure how many LGBT people get it, or how many practicing Christians will get it. One of the doctrines of Reformed Epistemology, a generally Calvinist-backed philosophical view of God, is that certain ideas are hard wired into human beings right from conception. Like how a child knows that sharing is good, or stealing is bad, even if no one has given that child direct knowledge of these facts. In the same way that we have direct knowledge, innate knowledge that we are reminded of about things like math (think about that one!), we have innate knowledge of the existence of God.
Which isn’t going to win the minds and hearts of atheists. But that’s a different thread all together.
My reality is that I’ve always known God existed, always had that connection, always sought Him out. I went from the church I was raised in to Buddhism to paganism to First Nations spiritual expressions in sweat lodges and vision quests, back to my roots. And when I came back to my roots, I realized that it felt like home, so I attempted to deepen my personal practice, prayed and continue to pray daily, pray the office, contemplate and meditate as much as I can in the day, do good things for the old people I clean for, and some of the younger people I clean for as well.
Which isn’t to say it’s easy being a Christian. The reality is the LGBT community, not in totality, but many people look at me in a somewhat perplexed way. Last week one individual actually called me out on it, saying that they couldn’t see how homosexuality and the worship of Jesus Christ as the Son of God were consistent.
Let me quote something here that gives me some consolation:
O Lord our God, who made humankind in thine image and likeness and gave it power over all flesh everlasting, and who now hast approved thy saints and apostles Philip and Bartholomew becoming partners, not bound together by nature, but in the unity of the HolySpirit and in the mode of faith, thou who didst consider they saints and martyrs Serge and Bacchus worthy to be united, bless thy servants, N. and N., joined not by nature . . . , but (grant them) to love each other and to remain undhated and without scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God and ever virgin Mary. Because to thee belongs all glory, honour, and worship.
This is a prayer from the liturgical same sex union from the tenth century. A further prayer from the same liturgy concludes: “Wonderful and much longed for is the sweet smell of love. On earth it sows the seeds of piety and in heaven it gathers the sheaves of justice. ‘He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth forever.’ Turn thy holy ear to the prayer we raise to Thee, for Thou are the provider of all good things and the saviour of our souls, and to Thee is endless glory, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” (from John Boswell’s ‘Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe’, published by Villard Books, New York, NY, USA. (C) 1994 John Boswell)
In short, the liturgical rights for same sex unions have existed in Catholic churches for over a thousand years.
Which isn’t going to bode well with many fundamentalists.
So how do I reconcile it, even with that evidence?
There are two things I am innately aware of. The first is that God exists. The second is that I am gay. Each of these exist with the same level of epistemic weight (meaning I believe in them relatively equally, I know them in my mind and heart with the same level of certainty). I know that as I practice my faith, I must trust that given I live my life to the best of my ability, given that I am open to the voice of God and His intercession through my prayer life and the interactions of others in my life, and given that I am open to the happiness of finding a partner, making a life with that partner, in my heart of hearts I cannot but think that a God, who in the wisdom and power of creating the universe so infinite that looking on the night sky is only looking upon a drop of a drop of a drop of a drop of creation, must of in His divine wisdom known what He was doing having created me a gay man in His creation. Was I not created in His image? Is there not room in a universe as diverse as ours is (although we cannot in our limited minds comprehend infinity as it is) for me, and the way I love, and the way I wish to express my love?
The life of contemplation and the work I do in contemplation, both gardening and my day job as a janitor, has given me a small taste of the infinite and my place in it. Last week I saw a bumper sticker that read “The Truth is Not Relative” and had a picture of a cross beside it. I suddenly had a revelation that if I believe that statement is relative, then even truth is relative. I can’t believe that. I don’t believe that. However, I do believe that how individuals respond to truth is relative. And, if I may be forgiven for taking this quote out of the context it was intended, and turning it on its head to prove my own point, I would direct you to the words of the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. I submit that a man, or woman, who truly loves God and is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, two-spirited, or questioning the fluidity of their own sexuality can fall under the category of the right. I submit that knowing one’s self is the closets way to knowing God, to knowing Jesus. “Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right.”
Spent the afternoon in the garden today, taking out more plants that are springing up in the beds here at Gladmer and moving them to the permanent garden over on Halifax I’m calling “Short Meadow”. I love my new bedroom. Even if it’s just plywood and drywall.
So I’m having two strange conflicting struggles in my mind right now that I’m focusing on. One is the fact that I haven’t had a relationship with my mother for about four years now. I walked out of a conversation in her home that to me felt more like something you should be hearing from a needy girlfriend than your mother, and even though I tried reaching out a few weeks ago to re-initiate some kind of a relationship with her, the idea of phoning her to start a conversation just makes me feel like I can’t cross that bridge again. Life has to be about making positive decisions, even if that means cutting people close to you loose because they create more negativity in your life. I just never saw it this way. Trying to focus on the things I can control, the things that have value: work, gardening, contemplation, my dog, my health.
The second strange conflicting struggle has to do with someone I met, but didn’t actually meet. The social media world is one strange place. When I chose to go hermit, that is, to retreat from any participation in “community” bigger than the small (very small) group of friends and family, I did it with the intention of trying to improve the quality of relationships in my life…who am I kidding. I did it because the idea of interacting with people threatened me. Very recently I walked away, luckily, from a bad “trip” in Saskatoon. Just when I think I’m able to step out, to risk letting someone get to know me, I end up choosing a nut. I seem to be good at that!
Which brings me to the struggle. Gentleman accepted a friend request a few days ago. He seems to meet a lot of the bells and whistles that I go for. I’ve never actually met the guy, this is all via social media we’re looking at this. My dilemma is this: do I introduce myself, and suggest we grab a coffee and get to know each other better (because clearly I’d like to know him better), or do I sit back, turtle, and contemplate that every guy I’ve made eyes on in the last year or so has ended up being a visitation to the crazies?
It’s very easy to get caught up in the romance of solitude, especially when you throw a spin of philosophy and theology onto it. Gardening is a passion that has really touched me in so many ways, but the yard has to have a gate, a way out, and a way for people to get in. I’ve started writing three or four times now, little messages about how I think he’s a nice guy and if he’s got the time and the inclination, I’d like to get to know him better. Each time I hit delete or turn off the computer because it feels needy, or it feels contrived; it’s lacking confidence!
Here I am, 43 years old closing on 44, and feeling about 15 years old.
The risk is planting the seed, seeing what grows. If it doesn’t come up? It doesn’t come up. Merely turn the soil and try again. With a seed it’s so much easier. These interactions with human beings….being lonely isn’t always a good thing.
the hermit gardener 