Show Up as I Am

Hi y’all!
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I’m back after a very busy few weeks! I had family visiting in LA, hosted a party for another friend visiting from Boston, and took another training with the Postural Restoration Institute, all while continuing my regular client and teaching schedule.

Needless to say, I bit off more than I could chew in the month of March. I’ve been feeling a bit run down, but my favorite place to recenter is in the garden. So as soon as I could I dove into upgrading my raised bed system for the coming growing season. I’ve known for a while that my raised beds had two problems - not enough soil depth for many vegetables that I’ve wanted to grow and the strawberries that I planted two years ago, while thriving, were taking up too much space and were often eaten by bugs.

I started by adding another prefab kit to the one I already had to raise the sides of the beds. Once the siding was added, I transferred the strawberry plants to container life on our balcony - Greg Alder wrote in his gardening blog that strawberries grown in containers usually have less bug problems so fingers crossed that we get some great berries this year. With more space and depth in the beds, I transplanted my corn, green bean, cucumber, and lettuce seedlings.

I felt so at peace in this work. Like I finally took a deep exhale. For the past several weeks I had been trying to fit into roles. Daughter. Host. Student. These are roles that are part of who I am, but they do not always feel natural to me. But gardener - it feels like one of the only roles in my life where I can show up exactly as I am. Where I don’t have to hold anything back or pretend or fake it or say I’m fine when I’m not. Plants do not care if I cry or laugh while I tend to them. They simply allow. They allow me to show up for them exactly as I am.