My zen moments are always in the garden, an update post.

 

After John died, I had to go to a mental health facility for a few days. Within ten years, I had experienced 6 major deaths, my son's marriages, a divorce among one of those, and the unexpected birth of a grandchild whom I had to care for. I had also quit writing. Add to this trauma the fact that I had torn two disks in my back, L4 and L5 while caring for John who chose to die at home and one can wonder how I even had the chance to process any of this. I think in some ways, I was just emotionally exhausted by it all and losing John was so painful that I thought I would not know how to live. That kind of depression is a bad place to be. Looking back, I am still haunted by some of those memories. And I have to look.

While at the facility, where they forced me to eat and attempt to sleep, I attended an art therapy class and saw a trauma specialist. Both were good for me and interconnected in that each asked about where I found myself happy at all. The answer was in my garden, doing the work. I call these my zen moments, where I lose myself and can completely empty my mind. One doesn't achieve this kind of mindfulness overnight. I began gardening when I was a very young girl and this habit of "not thinking anything" developed then. It was erratic but by the time I experienced all these stressful events later in life, I had mastered gardening into zen moments aka mindful meditation. You become nothing really, you think nothing, you lose ambition and even desire. What I notice in these moments are my breathing or the action of my body and a sense of calm. Even when I break the more meditative moments and say, talk to myself about the action (planting something, weeding something, clipping something, searching for an insect something) I am calm and detached from the world. It's not like hyper focus at all, because it's not fueled by the desires or anxiety often attached to focusing as in writing or painting or playing music. It's as though I have left me and joined nature.

After John's death and fallout, I could actually summon my special garden space and calm myself, even when I failed to be meditative as zen, even when I was full of anxiety or under the weight of depression. The color of my mind is always yellow in these moments. Yellow for the sun. Yellow for flowers. Yellow is my happy color. It seems silly, but trust me, it's not.

TODAY, I worked four hours in the garden and did the things I felt were best for a day that was going to turn 115 heat index. I finished before the heat arrived and took this photo around 10:30 in the morning. Everything got water soaked because this week is going to be very hot. I washed the patio furniture, cushions, pillows, etc. I cleaned out the potting shed. Put out some mulch, planted some Carolina jasmine (yellow). Despite the growing heat, there was a strong breeze in the first three hours. Felt nice. I took a break at 8 and hydrated, sitting under a tree. Lots of shade. Nature always amazes me. The beauty of it. How we manipulate it, too. I like the sounds of nature. I hear birds everywhere and I have three bird baths which I filled with water. I think a crow watches me, because I usually work in the garden in the morning and there is crow sound, very distinctive. But I can't see it for the trees. I didn't have any bird seed. Much buy soon.

Other update, Joey (youngest son) is coming to live with me for a bit. He needs to buy a car. He'll have to use my car for work until he gets one, which will be awkward but doable in a temporary way. It will be strange having Joey in the house since I am now very used to living alone. But he will be working mostly. I'll just have to figure out how to make plans to use my own car when he's off work. Again, awkward now but not impossible. Joey was in a relationship and now the relationship is over and they are splitting. Actually the split happened last year and they have been sharing a house and car despite the split. Now it's become unbearable. No way Joey can afford both a car note and rent at same time. Oh, well.