I took this back in late May at the opening party for the Parkdale Community H.O.P.E Garden. Or was it June? I forget already.
I just spent 7-8 hours gardening non-stop and am completely exhausted and content with what I accomplished. I should have been at my computer making the donuts but with the forecast calling for 40 degree temperatures this weekend, I was pretty sure I would not want to be out in the sun pruning basil and staking tomatoes. Both are tasks I enjoy intensely but not so much in the kinds of temperatures they warn about on alarmist news programs. Gardener keels over because she just HAD to prune basil and stake tomatoes on the hottest day of the year. News at eleven.
Today, for the first time, I experienced the feeling of wanting more gardening space. I have always lived without space, both of the outdoor and indoor kind. I have always lived in rented places (except that one year between ages 16 and 17) with neighbors that can be heard through walls and floors. Concepts like ownership and dishwashers are utterly unfamiliar, foreign even. The lack of indoor space has become increasingly annoying within the last few years but there have been many times when people have wished (for me) that I get a farm in the country and I have always replied that I am a city person through and through and while I do wish I had a yard that is my own, and that I am tired of the bullshit social politics that sometimes comes with sharing space with assorted personalities, I have mostly felt that what I had was enough. But today I allowed my mind to wander and dream of something larger, something MORE. I realized that there are things I want to try as a gardener that are never going to be possible given my situation. I want to make a garden that is as useful as it is a work of art. I can't do that right now because so much of my limited space is used as a testing ground. The trial gardens. Lessons in how to make less seem like more. I have paid my dues. I hate admitting that this lesson is starting to get really fucking old.
I love my gardens and am grateful that I have the space I do have, but today I allowed my mind to go somewhere new into a place I haven't allowed it to go before and I just suddenly felt really shitty and deflated knowing how many obstacles would need to be overcome to attain a fraction of that fantasy. When I think about it this is almost a metaphor for the overarching disappointment I have felt over the last year -- a disappointment that is drilling me repeatedly in the gut with heavyweight punches lately as I approach my 34th birthday. I have supportive friends who are trying to get me to see what they see but I am one stubborn fucker. What do you do when your best doesn't seem to be enough? Change direction? Work even harder? Just say fuck it? I'll get back to you when I figure it out.