Gardening has taught me so much about life and how to live it. Among those many lessons, one in particular seems most relevant these days. Gardening has driven home the idea that it is fruitless (pun intended) to cling to the status quo. Every gardener learns to make peace with ephemera, defeat, and outright failure... after all, there is always something new to plant, right?
I moved to Portland from Bend a year and a half ago and, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I left behind a beloved garden, tended for almost a decade in a funky space behind our house. The last three springs and summers I lived in that house were glorious ones for the garden...the space looked especially harmonious after we painted the house's exterior. Just as conditions in my garden were close to optimal, we decided to sell our house and leave Bend.
I have no regrets in moving to Portland. My family gave up a lot to move here, but it was done with hopes of positive change earned through hard work and sacrifice. I personally fell in love with this city, in part, because of the primordial fecundity...there is always something growing here, even if it is an enthusiastic patch of mold between your bedroom wall and your bed. The gardens here are incredibly charming and retain their beauty well into winter.
And so there will be other gardens, but I still pine for that little patch of earth back in Bend. I hope the new owners appreciate what they inherited. But I can't pine too much, because it's gone now and I just have to look forward to gardens to come. The change excites me, gets the juices flowing.
And so life can be, like a favorite short-lived perennial who flourishes gloriously and is gone. It leaves behind a space for something new to potentially become just as beloved. Change is good.