I toured a friend's garden today. It's always a wonderland. We talked plants and
then she made me a salad with greens and nasturtiums. That she grew in her garden, of course.
She's a painter too. On her living room wall was a large painting she'd worked
on for months. She's busy. So busy. A complicated life. Here's my yoga
space she said, gesturing to a space between her couch and her bay window full
of orchids. I haven't been doing much yoga, I said. Me either, she said. But
I
have a yoga space.
 |
| Hollyhock buds. I'm waiting. |
My yoga space is in my bedroom. Or used to be. Now it's my garden. Not that I'm doing yoga out there when I step out the door, still my in pajamas and blowing on my coffee. What I'm doing is breathing. What I'm doing is looking and listening.
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| That crow is there on top of the blue spruce every day. |
Was that what my dad was doing?
My father has been dead a very long time. He died suddenly of a heart attack when I was 19. Nineteen years is not long enough to get to know a parent. Our relationship was just beginning to shift, and then he was gone.
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| Cuke. |
Maybe he gardened not just to garden. Maybe he really loved being out there, looking and listening. Maybe he wasn't just putting food on the table. Maybe he was doing yoga.
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| Shiny! Are all banana peppers shiny? |
It never occurred to me to ask him if he loved those plants. If he loved hearing the birds or the wind or the feel of that black Iowa dirt.
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