You and I Are Too Old Not to Be the Garden the World Needs Right Now
Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society
Thoughts on gardens, and how to become one
The sun was just rising when we started out. Golden-red, it painted the fir bark in my yard as we set out, Mika and I, on our three-mile hike. It was just shy of six a.m., a sweet and cool 54 degrees, rising to double that by five pm today.
By July, the dense, thick grasses which had characterized this walk in spring are now seedy and nearly white, tamped down or leaning lazily over the sidewalk. We speed-walk until Mika finds something of interest, which we both find when we hit what I call Heaven.
Heaven, in this case, is a short strip of tended ground full of gorgeous flowers. I especially love the huge puffs of lavender, great round bushes (mine do NOT grow like this!) so full of color and fragrance that we both have to stop and smell.
The woman who tends this little chunk next to the busy road is Asian. My guess, Chinese. We’ve got a nodding acquaintance. She smiles broadly every time she sees Mika and me because we both love to stop and gush.
She tends this plot by herself. Probably in her sixties. Not her land; all of this is common area, which I have around my house as well. I tend my common area too, because it’s an extension of both my home, and not surprisingly, myself.
As with her. She lives on the other side of the wooden fence. Yet all spring through fall, she tends this small area with great love.
Doesn’t have to. Does anyway.
It’s her gift to the rest of the world.
You and I are WAY too old not to want to make the world a better place than we found it.
Those of us who walk by take in the results of her work with pleasure. She told me once that other people ask her how on earth she gets her lavender to look like a purple puff ball. She shrugs, grins again, and says “I have no idea.”
Countless people walk this road with their dogs, run or bike or saunter. Countless people see these flowers three seasons of the year. Perhaps without her realizing it, this little oasis pleases, soothes and gives joy.
Made me think about our work as writers and what we do with our words.
Yesterday I spent time with
, whom I had recently met. Rebecca leapt onto Substack and immediately began adding considerable value with her work around Family Scapegoating Abuse, a term she originated. I was on my way back home from time on the Coast with my puppy and stopped in to say hello. We put our dogs in her yard and spent time getting to know one another.Rebecca’s one of those oases, a person who creates a space where folks are fed, soothed and find succor. Years ago I did that with a women’s group named The Hubbel Group, which was later profiled in Networking Magic by Jill Lublin.
That group changed my life. It also taught me that the greatest gift we can offer others is a space to evolve, be themselves, be seen and recognized and challenged and supported. It’s not about using others to become successful. It’s about creating a space where others find value- that ends up helping us be successful as a result. Big difference.
That was long before Substack and social media. Today we can create those kinds of communities online, as do many of my Substack fellow writers. I wanted to acknowledge that work here, and point out its importance.
Each of us, whether it’s someone like
with her “Ponders” or Or or or - and this is just a very short list of folks whose work I love- creates an oasis the same way this lovely Asian woman does. It’s a space in the world where people can be seen as we are, where people share something with us that’s profound and we are heard.Most importantly, the best oases are full of folks brave enough to do two things: be willing to call out, with love and respect, our bullshit, call out their own bullshit, laugh along the way, and support our dealing with our bullshit.
Good groups allow us to challenge the terrible lies we tell ourselves about our value, and slowly but surely write a different life script.
In fact in a true oasis the community uses the bullshit for fertilizer for everyone’s growth. That’s Deep Work. Substack is full of wonderful places just like this. The challenge, natch, is to find one which deals with your particular journey, be it eating disorders or middle child issues or finding ways to be a deeply sensitive man in a toxic masculine world.
While The Hubbel Group met in person, which is my preference as a Boomer, online groups allow more people from more places to engage. Many of us, as I did with Rebecca yesterday, create opportunities to meet in person (I see you
) which adds richness to our connections.Folks like
and and write about their aging journeys, as we grey alone or partnered, and as we move towards an inevitable sunset with some kind of agency. The profound value of such writing is that it pulls us out of the pity party that “we’re the only one who feels like this” -there’s bullshit for you- and proves that our feelings are universally shared.Therefore, we’re effing NORMAL.
Thank you.
As our Oregon day heats into the hundreds and I pull all the shades down to capture the morning cool, I am reminded to tend the garden of my own heart. I will water all the outdoor potted plants, put them in the shade, protect what I can so that those who walk by continue to enjoy my yard.
And yes, even those whose doggos poop in my yard, I’m glad you both like my yard too.
How I extend that garden, how I offer the spaces I create for others to feel welcomed, seen and acknowledged, are like that Asian woman’s garden. It takes work on my part to make the space friendly and welcoming.
It’s my way of making the world better than I found it, in the garden of my yard and in my heart.
All of us need to be the garden the world needs right now. We may only touch a few people, perhaps a few thousand. Doesn’t matter. Those people are then changed, and they may choose to be the garden for others.
What we write matters. The space we create matters. When you realize just how important you are, how important your words are, you may just understand that you are, indeed, the garden the world needs.
Let’s play.
Thank you for reading with me this July day. We are halfway through the year and if memory serves, by the end of the month we will be seeing Halloween stuff in the stores. Let’s celebrate summer while we have summer. If this article gave you value, please consider
If you know someone who could use a boost, please consider
Either way, thanks for reading, and please play safely in the heat, or the cold, wherever you are!
I like this piece. I always like your work. It's respite from my own. This really resonates with me. I recently relocated to a tiny house in a tiny town in northern Arizona. In addition to my writing, I took a little job--go small or go home--working with autistic adults and I have never loved a group of people more. It gives me hope that I still have so much empathy left inside me. My work is dark and that's ok. It's a dirty job and I'm happy to do it. I'm working hard dialing down the anger and frustration at a world that breaks my heart, daily. And, instead, trying to figure out what I can do to make the shit show a little less shitty. It starts with me.
I loved reading this essay. It made me feel like stepping into the little piece of heaven created by the Asian woman who tends this extension strip of a garden, and the spacious oasis that YOU provide for all of your readers so generously. I absolutely love this metaphor: "in a true oasis the community uses the bullshit for fertilizer for everyone’s growth."
As I go through my own fermentation (grief) and call out--for my own healing--all the bullshits I put up with in the past, I feel that my soul is challenging me to rise to a new level of honesty in my writing. This is deep and scary work. Which is why I'm needing more time than ever to brew/ferment/compost! But like the round lavender bush this Asian woman has grown, what really goes into it, though mysterious, is probably the essence of love.
I recently bought a little plaque that says, "Do small things with great love." I want that to be a good reminder and a guiding principal for whatever I do.