Creating Space in Your Garden/Life/Writing

I did a lot of gardening this weekend. Weeding, mostly, but also "editing." 

Since the last time I'd visited my garden, the plants had tripled in size and now looked like commuters in a subway car at rush hour. The less aggressive ones, like Jacob's ladder, were being crushed by the robust day lilies and the ever-encroaching lady's mantle. The solomon seal had marched its way across the bed, infiltrating and colonizing neighboring settlements. Nothing, it seemed, could stop its relentless assault. 

I have long held the belief that it's sacrilegious to divide plants in June in Vermont. Our season is so short I felt it my duty to let each plant fully manifest its destiny until September. Besides, I wanted as much color as each plant could muster.

But I found myself craving space. Each plant had grown indistinct. What I faced was a mass of leafy green giants, elbowing one another aside in their frenzy to attract pollinators. I hate to anthropomorphize, but some plants are greedy.

So I started pulling and digging, first lily-of-the-valley, and then violets, and iris, and gooseneck loosestrife. I carved out pathways and established boundaries. Now that I can see where one ends and the next begins, each plant has taken on an identity. More, I found, isn't necessarily better. Neither is bigger.

This got me wondering what other areas of my life might benefit from a little space. My writing? My volunteer work? My teaching? Each of my friends? My family? Exercise? Do I crowd so much into each day that I can't enjoy and appreciate the component parts?

If so, how do I go about making spaces? Something to think about.

Persistence and Ingenuity

Below my feeder today are two mourning doves and one robin. On the feeder is one persistent red squirrel. Ours is a "squirrel-proof feeder," information that, apparently, no one gave to the squirrel. The slender metal perches are designed to give way when anything heavier than a sparrow lands there. It works, but not well. Bluejays merely grip more tightly when the perch dips and continue shoveling down seed.

The squirrel has a tougher time. He shinnies up and reaches across the narrow divide (about squirrel-sized) between pole and feeder and grabs onto the rim of a feeding port. Occasionally he misses, and his paw finds one of the perches, which releases, sending the squirrel plummeting to the ground. Deterred? Not a bit. Up the pole he goes again, cantalevering himself across the space, aiming again for that opening and the prize within.

Sometimes he remains like this to eat, awkwardly balanced between feeder and pole. Other times he reliquishes the pole and hangs from the edge of the hole by his front legs, wrapping his hindquarters under the feeder. Neither position looks comfortable. Neither looks elegant. But he sticks with it and gets the job done. Every day he shows up and gets the job done. There's a lesson in this for me as a writer. Some of this work may be uncomfortable and inelegant, but persistence (and ingenuity) pays off.