The Gardener's Soul

Published at last! I've taken a break from blogging to finish up my now published book, "The Gardener's Soul: Nature's Path Toward Inner Peace." Information about the publication is available through Createspace, an affiliate of Amazon.com.

I hope to be back to my garden blog on a regular basis! I've missed everyone.

Hiatus

I took a break...

The weeds grew in the garden. The gazebo project didn't get finished. My blotanical blogger ranking moved up. (Now how does that happen?)

I'm often afraid of letting go. I push and push and then I run out of steam. The house doesn't get cleaned. I stop writing. I don't check e-mails religiously. I don't keep track of food shopping. (We ran out of ketchup this week! UGH! That's a hard one in this house.) I feel like I'm losing control and only when I let the everyday activities slip through my fingers can I regain composure.

Why do I garden? Do I garden because I enjoy it or because I need to do it? If I don't keep up with it, the plants will turn into a jungle. My yard will be like everyone else's, even though they expect more when they come to visit because I AM a gardener. Don't they expect spectacular things from me? When I start to worry about the final result of the gardening, it isn't fun anymore. And if it isn't fun, what's the point?

We had bouts of nasty weather last week and school vacation started for my daughter two weeks ago. I didn't feel like writing, gardening or keeping my routine. I read. I even read fiction. It was such a wonderful guilty treat. Reading any kind of fiction to me is like many people's views of reading romance novels, I imagine. (I haven't read a romance novel since I was 15...not that I have anything against it.) I spend most of my time reading non-fiction - gardening books, history, biography...I've been reading Sophie Kinsella's wonderful Shopaholic series. I've played Barbies. I even baked a pie. ("What. Melissa bake?" Those who know me well may not believe it. I really do on occasion, but generally food preparation gets in the way of real life.)

I received a lovely letter in the mail yesterday telling me that my book proposal is beautiful, but this particular publisher wouldn't be able to market it properly. Last week, I attended the retirement party of a former boss -- one of my most admired bosses of all time -- and was asked by his assistant to consider taking his place. I was truly honored. Real life was knocking at the door. It was telling me that good things are ready to happen. It has finally stopped raining in NH. So, the gazebo was finished yesterday. The gardens are just about weeded...I'm refreshed...

Hiatus over.

Garden Bloggers Book Club

I am excited to participate in my first Garden Bloggers Bookclub. This month, one of my favorite gardeners is the focus of our reading. Elizabeth Lawrence was a wonderful gardener and writer. Well-known in the mid-twentieth century, she was an expert in her field. Most inspiring to me is the ability Elizabeth had to reach out to others. She is a symbol for the camaraderie gardeners achieve.

Lawrence corresponded with gardeners all over the country and encouraged others to send her information about what bloomed in her garden when. Her book The Little Bulbs focuses on one special relationship she had with a gardener who lived half a country away. In her preface, Lawrence state, "There are other gardens and gardeners that must enter into this tale. Some I have seen, and some I know only from letters or books, but all these gardens are as real to me as my own." She believed that, "Gardening, reading about gardening, and writing about gardening are all one; no one can garden alone."

My first exposure to Lawrence was through the recently published book Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters edited by Emily Herring Wilson. Through their personal correspondence, the book reveals the relationship of Lawrence and Katharine S. White who was the wife of famed Charlotte' Web author E.B White. (Mr. White is well-known to me and is a favorite of my daughter through this book, The Trumpet of the Swan and Stewart Little. All of his stories encourage children to respect nature, which is especially attractive to me.) As an archivist who has spent a good portion of her adult life handling original historical materials, I am especially excited by the format of Two Gardeners. Next to a diary, personal correspondence digs deepest into the psyche of the writer. It offers the reader an honest look at a person. through original documents we can form our own opinions about those we study, rather than relying on the observations of another writer.

Two Gardeners provides valuable information about the history of gardening, gardening methods, well-known gardeners from the mid twentieth century, and the book is a valuable resource for women's studies.

Here is one of my favorite excerpts. I love it for despite being acknowledged by others as an authority, Lawrence is humble. She encourages White's gardening efforts by playing down her own expertise. and states in a letter from 1959, "I can't answer your questions because I don't know the answers. Far from being an expert, I am the most causal gardener. I don't even own a spray. When things get sick I destroy them. I haven't divided daffodils for years. I just put out things and let htem take their chances. When I write about the way things should be done, I quote an expert. I am a writer. In my garden everything grows on top of everything else and I let them fight it out...I have never found any ground cover that is satisfactory for little bulbs." It gives me hope that I can be a "gardener" too. This statement encourages me to experiment and try my best. (I should also note that White too was an experienced gardener. She is best knownby gardners for her column in the New Yorker called "Onward and Upward.")

I must end this by explaining that Ms. White was a typical northern "Yankee," while Lawrence was a southerner. This divide made their relationship even more special. It shows how a garden camaraderie can bridge gaps, making geography and other incidentals irrelevant. Gardening makes our differences something to cherish and explore. I have learned this from the camaraderie I am developing with my own international garden friends on blotanical

Reading in the Great Outdoors

For my family, a large part of nature's attraction is that it offers is a great place to sit and read. There is nothing quite like spreading out a blanket on the lawn and sitting with a good book or magazine. Breezy spring days are especially pleasant after being cooped up inside all winter.

I heard a report on National Public Radio yesterday where the guests debated the future of the printed book. They discussed how computer use is changing the way children read. More and more kids do their primary reading on the computer, rather than in book form. Psychologists talked about how the wiring of the human brain is changing due to this major change in the way kids learn. It was a fascinating discussion about the future of books, the future of the computer, and the future of civilization.

As former librarian with a master's degree in library science and as a bibliophile, I have a keen interest in this topic. In my first professional job as a librarian, I was also the library's archivist and Internet Coordinator. I had my foot in many camps - past, present and future. I do consider myself a techie to a degree, though compared to my husband who works with computers for a living, I am nothing of the sort. I love computers and history. I tend to see the good and bad in moving quickly forward with technology. But I won't go into that here, except to say that it would be more than a shame if we lost the ability to hold a book in our hands and turn the pages.

Those who believe that the printed book should die obviously do not regularly sit in the garden with book in hand. Though I can see how it would be nice to save some trees by not using so much paper, I see little benefit to moving all information to a digital form. Sitting in the garden with a laptop before me does not bring the same sense of peace as a book does. The book's smell, feel, weight, design - in short, it's uniqueness - give me an almost perverse pleasure. This is the same pleasure I feel when I examine an individual plant. To me, a book is a man-made miracle. It is a work of art - a view of the world brilliantly packaged. We can read a book on the surface level, enjoying the author's story as we would enjoy the vibrant colors of a flower. Or, we can dig deeper, trying to read between the lines, forming opinions about the obvious and looking for the not so obvious meaning behind the author's words. This is analogous to the way I sometimes settle back to enjoy an overview of a garden, yet other times the garden experience makes me think about nature's handiwork, the future of the environment, or some other deep topic.

I've never had quite the same inner stirrings for a computer, though I know my husband probably has. He was taking them apart and putting them back together by the time he was ten. He is fascinated by the inner workings of electronics. That is how his brain is wired. Mine is not. Why do we have to settle for one way of thinking? I think that he and I make a very complementary team.

There is room in this world for books and computers just as there is room for peonies and pansies. Each has a place. Think how well-rounded our children will be if we transfer appreciation for all forms of information in our world. The book promotes linear thinking. The computer promotes multi-tasking and non-linear thinking. Both are beneficial depending on the time and place....do you really want to sit in your hammock and read from the computer? What would happen to your electronic reading device if you fall asleep there anyway? I have visions of it crashing to the floor. Dropping a book would be much less expensive if nothing else.