Threading the Seasons

I keep finding myself yearning for sentimental things these days.

I’m currently wearing a few pieces of jewelry that are old and treasured. The first I stumbled upon while looking for something else. Instead, I found an even more precious something: the promise ring my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I exchanged a year before we got engaged — and right before I left to do a study abroad in Argentina my senior year of college. His promise ring slipped off his ring finger some tiring graveyard shift while he was digging in the bales of hops for his brewery job at Deschutes Brewery; it was never found and probably ended up in their water recycling plant. I’ve slipped mine underneath my wedding ring, stacking our story together for a new chapter. It felt simple yet significant, honoring our story, and I may wear them like this for the rest of my life. It just felt right.

The other treasure I’m wearing is that of my paternal grandfather. You see, I am having my favorite watch repaired, and the only other functional watch I have is my grandfather’s watch, it’s an old fashioned, battery-free wind up kind. It keeps time as well as my iPhone. There’s a lesson there.

At first I thought I was holding onto the past, these parts of my life that aren’t ever going to return. However, I realized today I am delicately and intentionally threading the years together, weaving them into my very being right now. I visualize it as an embroidery needle reaching back to pick up these important moments and people and experiences of my past and traveling through time along that very thread to carry them here, stitching their love into my present life so I can carry them close at heart.

Their visual presence honors and accepts my past, while recognizing the person I am today, and the person I am becoming still. It’s not unlike my relationship with plants.

The garden does this too, in so many ways. Each year the tapestry grows ever more intricate, with the past year’s life experiences composting and flourishing anew with each passing season. Grief melds into joy and remembrance. Arduous times may root down, delicately and humbly flower in inconspicuous ways. The garden holds our heart, our hopes, our dreams, our joy, and our deepest grief. It all grows there.

Each season I spend with a plant is imbued with the experiences of that season. I revisit them year over year like dear family, and our shared experiences entwine and become richer and more meaningful. Last year was the first year I grew sesame and the first year I lost my father. My mother-in-law loved blue and we had an incredible green darner dragonfly land on a larkspur that completely delighted her, one of the final joyful garden memories I ever shared with her before she passed. Larkspur remain a self-sowing summer flower and they honor her legacy. Spending time in my garden with my thoughts, heartaches, dreams, favorite people, and mundane moments all adds beautiful layers of continuity to my life. It’s almost like another succession within the garden.

Perhaps my life is the succession, and as I learn and grow, I see the garden and plants and space with new possibility.

I can’t wait to see what this season brings to life, as the space remains so still and quiet.