there is a week in summer when caring for the garden becomes less a joy and more a chore. its tendency to delight me by the most mundane of moments--a tiny shoot of life, the seduction of a honey bee, the sun lighting up droplets of water clinging to its petals--is tempered by its insatiable need for maintenance. maintenance that is tender one day and resentful the next.
the bright newness is replaced by the inevitability of change. the carefree ease gives way to a mindful commitment of care. the energy recalibrates to fuel less the outward show, more the network of roots forged over time that will see it safely through cycles of resignation and hope, spark and smolder, rupture and repair, death and rebirth.
