Gardening is also hard, damnit!
I like to garden. It is something I enjoy doing and wish I had more time (and money) for. I like getting my hands in the dirt. Digging. Planting little seeds. Pulling weeds. I LOVE pulling weeds.
Let me clarify here. I do not love being out in the heat with the sun beating down on the back of my neck while I tackle a vegetable bed that is really just a mass of overgrown weeds. That sucks. What I love is sitting on my knees next to the garden on a cool morning, listening to the birds sing and feeling the breeze on my skin. I love to examine the garden closely to see each of the tiny little weeds that have just started to grow, then plucking each one out of the dirt. There is something very satisfying about feeling that little root release from the dirt and come up out of the ground.
I have to admit, though, that I'm not a very good gardener. When I get busy going places with the kids, days go by without a visit to the garden. And I do stupid stuff. I noticed insect eggs on my pumpkin leaves and did nothing except admire them (they were an amazing vivid red). I trellised watermelons this year (small ones). I knew I needed to support the developing fruit in mesh bags, but put it off until my prize melon was just big enough to bring a whole vine crashing down.
I tell myself that the way I will become good at gardening is to keep doing it year after year, and try to learn from my many mistakes. It is hard, though. Back when I was a student and back when I was working, I was always good at what I did. I made mistakes, but not too many (although I did agonize over every one). To put it another way, I have a long history of avoiding things that don't come easy to me. Anything I struggled with was discarded (like my short-lived career as a hairstylist).
My first real break with that pattern was to become a mother. Suddenly I did not feel competent at what I was doing. And just when I would start to get into the swing of things my kids would grow and change and leave me at the bottom of the learning curve again. I still struggle with feeling like I'm not good enough at the mama-gig. Like I should handle a day with preschoolers as handily as I handled a busy pharmacy or a bunch of broken SAS code.
And now I am branching out into new interests. Gardening. Arts. Crafts. Writing. Home improvement. All things I want to do and do well, but none that I have a natural flair for. I have gone from being very good at one or two things, to being not great at many different things. I think this is better.
Let me clarify here. I do not love being out in the heat with the sun beating down on the back of my neck while I tackle a vegetable bed that is really just a mass of overgrown weeds. That sucks. What I love is sitting on my knees next to the garden on a cool morning, listening to the birds sing and feeling the breeze on my skin. I love to examine the garden closely to see each of the tiny little weeds that have just started to grow, then plucking each one out of the dirt. There is something very satisfying about feeling that little root release from the dirt and come up out of the ground.
I have to admit, though, that I'm not a very good gardener. When I get busy going places with the kids, days go by without a visit to the garden. And I do stupid stuff. I noticed insect eggs on my pumpkin leaves and did nothing except admire them (they were an amazing vivid red). I trellised watermelons this year (small ones). I knew I needed to support the developing fruit in mesh bags, but put it off until my prize melon was just big enough to bring a whole vine crashing down.
I tell myself that the way I will become good at gardening is to keep doing it year after year, and try to learn from my many mistakes. It is hard, though. Back when I was a student and back when I was working, I was always good at what I did. I made mistakes, but not too many (although I did agonize over every one). To put it another way, I have a long history of avoiding things that don't come easy to me. Anything I struggled with was discarded (like my short-lived career as a hairstylist).
My first real break with that pattern was to become a mother. Suddenly I did not feel competent at what I was doing. And just when I would start to get into the swing of things my kids would grow and change and leave me at the bottom of the learning curve again. I still struggle with feeling like I'm not good enough at the mama-gig. Like I should handle a day with preschoolers as handily as I handled a busy pharmacy or a bunch of broken SAS code.
And now I am branching out into new interests. Gardening. Arts. Crafts. Writing. Home improvement. All things I want to do and do well, but none that I have a natural flair for. I have gone from being very good at one or two things, to being not great at many different things. I think this is better.
posted by Cindy at 10:12 PM
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