Life goes on. How many times have we all heard that? And how many times do we have to experience it ourselves before it no longer comes as a surprise? Over and over and over it seems, at least for me. Then it still manages to surprise me. School was in, now it’s out. It was once alive and the focus of everything, and now it’s over. Looking back, I was so focused on the first day of kindergarten, never contemplating the last day would also arrive in due time.
It’s like taking your honeymoon. While planning for it and looking forward in anticipation, you never think about the fact that it will come to an end. It’s tough (and not much fun) to conceptualize that it will actually end, but it does. Reality sets in with laundry, bills, work, thank you notes, and all of the humdrum stuff called everyday life. Thankfully photos can temporarily bring it back to life, at least in your mind.
Alas, I am learning the same lesson on the cycle of life yet again via the garden/jungle. Being a newbie to the wonderful world of vegetable growing, I never thought about any of it ending, plants systematically dying off, and all that practical seasonal stuff. Well, much to my surprise, my garden is neither magical nor eternal. Once a testament to rapid overwhelming growth, my glorious sugar snap peas are now but a memory. After dutiful service, they have died a simple and pronounced natural death. Splat.
One day they were sprouting out their kelly-green pods with reckless abandon, leaving them dangling all over like Christmas ornaments. Then the next day I noticed a couple of the vines were starting to turn brown. In my naivete I tried to give them some extra water as a simple fix, but it was to no avail. Their time had come, and their job was done, for this year anyway. (Insert bugle playing “Taps” here.)
On the flip side I planted a few innocent (or seemingly so) pumpkin seeds just a week ago. Holy cow! They are growing as fast as gangsters on the run. Watch out, Bonnie and Clyde! They are already the same size as cucumbers that I planted back a few weeks ago. I guess they really do take over wherever they are. I actually hope they do go into turbo mode because it’s so much fun to marvel as nature takes its often unpredictable course. Man, it would be pretty cool to carve up some home-grown pumpkins this October. I wonder if Martha does that. Who-da-thunk last Halloween that this year I’d be contemplating my own mini-pumpkin patch? Whoever said “never say never” sure had it right. (No, Justin Bieber did not coin the phrase; I heard it before he was born. Boy, do I sound crotchety.)
So there are good surprises and sad surprises. My answer to the latter is to keep planning and planting a season ahead. I suppose that’s the gardener’s way of looking at the glass as half full (or the raised box as the case may be.) If you focus on the wonder of new growth as it unfolds, you can’t help but anticipate it growing even bigger, surging with new life. Life does go on. It’s beautiful to watch, so we may as well enjoy the ride.
NOTE TO SELF: Time to research hardy winter vegetables.
LibbY