grounding
by bam

I wasn’t long off the plane, the suitcase barely unpacked, the clothes not halfway down the chute, and I was leaping into my oldest, most tattered, hand-me-down shorts (I seem to have a whole wardrobe of tattered ill-fitting hand-me-down shorts, these are the ones with the hem that dangles in front and disappears somewhere behind) and the t-shirt so ancient it’s bearing the name of a slick Andy Warhol launched in the very late ’60s. I call these my gardening clothes. The muddier they get, the more merrily I and they hum.
I had grounding to do. Grounding for me is quite literal. It’s a psychological balm and it comes with a trowel. I literally slice into the earth to draw out what amounts to a steadying potion, the closest I know to nerve-soothing elixir.
September had gotten away from me. I’d intended a few weeks of quiet. So go such intentions. The holy communion of saints must be guffawing up in the clouds.
So out I trotted into my back twenty; what once seemed endless expanse is now (thanks to the neighbors’ newly-erected 6.5-foot solid-cedar wall) most generously described as a wee jewel box of growing potential. My plot has shrunk, so it seems, but the newly defined outlines merely raise the ante. It’s a petit point of a garden I’m after. A tapestry of tiniest botanical stitches.
I was soon on my knees. Fitting in ferns with their feathery fronds. Tucking in anemones with upstanding names, names that made them feel like royalty (Honorine Jobert — I imagine an empress) and names that sound like poetry in motion (Whirlwind — imagine them asway in September’s gentle breezes).
Balms come in a thousand disguises. There are balms to swallow, and balms to chew. Balms that cover you in sweat, and balms that make you smell of chlorine. Took me a long, long time to find a balm that didn’t hurt me (plain old eating vexed me for decades). At last, though, I found healing balm in the sacred ground that surrounds this old shingled house. I found it watching the shadows play catch-me-if-you-can. And I found it watching the red bird alight on my window sill. I found it pretending I live in a cloister, and this is my garth. My prayer bench draped in clouds; my kneeler in clumps of compost.
Maybe it was the long time coming that makes it more sacred. Maybe it’s remembering how emptiness once felt. And how distant that hollow is now. Maybe it’s facing the truth that there will still be days when the emptiness rises, when I feel my nerves starting to jangle, and tears are on the verge. Those are the days when I need to remember that something akin to a heavenly flow is just beyond the kitchen door. And I can tap into it with merely a trowel.
It’s quietly waiting there in the garden, my potpourri of barely detectable perfumes (lavender and heirloom hyacinth) and ones that knock your socks off (Korean spice viburnum); and leaves in shapes that might have been scissored in some far-off French lace factory. And then there are all the wild things who know they need no invitation. They’re the animators, the ones that chirp and chatter and squawk and belt out their twilight arias. Wide-bellied bees gather gold dust right before my eyes; butterflies flit and flutter and all but land on my shoulder. Even hummingbirds roll through town, on their way to tropical jungles where they’ll blend in with all the other primal screams of ruby and gold and shimmering emerald. It’s a menagerie out there, and I play the role of devoted observer, the one who quietly putters, poking plants here, there, and anywhere I can squeeze one more in.
It’s all merely excuse for getting as close to the thrum of the earth as I can. It’s there where the worms wriggle, and the trees find their succulence, where the anemone roots and the chipmunks play chase, that I hear the undeniable, deeply permeable notes of heaven’s indelible undying song.
I am grounding myself for the winter ahead. Grounding myself from the September and the summer behind….
welcome to autumn, the season of turning within….
for reasons that escape me, i seem to have decided that i will employ the shift key on my keyboard from time to time, and occasionally tap out a sentence complete with capital letters. sometimes makes for easier reading, i’d imagine. so i am — on occasion — giving it a Whirl.
where or how do you find grounding? was it hard for you to find?
I love the concept of a small sweet garden as a tapestry in petit point. May your new plants flourish and embroider your home with beauty. Quiet garden hours and peace aplenty, these are my wishes for you. xo
of COURSE i think of you every time i allude to anything with needle and thread. you set the bar for needlework beauty and the rest of us stand in perpetual awe…..
Thank you. 👍
thank YOU.
Went straight out the back door to see if any of my anemones were still pretty. (See your inspiration on Facebook!) I prefer the bold purple ones, but these are from my mom’s garden, so very special. Headed to Ohio in a few hours to see my parents, my sister, and hopefully Sam. Keep digging in the dirt!
i’ve got a flock of pink ones (flamingoes??) but i wanted the white ones for my shadier garden, where i am channeling gertrude jekyll and going for a white garden.
lucky you to be headed buckeye way. i have to wait a couple weeks to cross that state line. if you bump into a kid who looks like mine, surprise the heck out of him, give him a hug and tell him his ol’ mama sent it!
will go peek at FB now. flowers from a mother’s garden are a breed all their own. xoxoxox
Will you be at Kenyon for Family Weekend? We hope to see you at this final one!
yup! how oh how can this be the last already?!?!?!?!?!? i will keep my eyes peeled for you. xoxox
I’ve always loved the idea of a secret garden – sounds like that’s what has been given to you all of a sudden. I’ve always grounded myself in nature – playing outside in the woods behind our house as a kid and then in gardening later on. But I think reading is the thing that really centers me — and your books and book recommendations are some of the very best examples of good centering tools.
we should plant ourselves in a garden with tall stacks of books towering over us and ground ourselves till the cows come home….
My hand is way in the air for that one. Day retreat for all the chairs at bam’s!!! 😉
I love this, Barb. Feel the same way about plunging my hands into
the earth–peaceful balm. Had to cut back a bit this year because I
always tend to overdo it and I pay for my enrichment with sore
muscles for days. The foliage got away from me this year, and last
week I discovered two very large racoons cavorting happily on the
top of our pergola with the overgrown grapevine–apparently grapes
are their favorite. However, I finally coralled the young man who
cuts the lawn to wrangle back the jungle next week so I’m already
thinking of picking out some bulbs for next spring. Happy
gardening. I have several pair or shorts like yours.
no one sells like those; they have to be earned. and oh baby i’m earning ’em!
the picture of your cavorting raccoons makes me smile (it likely made you grimace). glad they were making themselves a feast. i’ve got a woodpecker who is thinking our house is a tree. he seems intent on digging till he finds juicy fruits, which hopefully he won’t find in our shingles……
Well BAM you know my secret place is my back porch/yard. I love it just before dawn when the dweet cardinal plugs in his/her playlist. I think nature is the most sacred elixir. My little cottage has just recovered from covid. So heading outside in that murky time between night and dawn grabs me and I’m grounded.
Weeding comes later.😘
oh that murky time…..your porch has such magical powers it transports me every time you write about it, or every time i imagine you there with your creaky rocker and your low country soundtrack…..
i am so sorry to hear your cottage has been red-ringed. i was feeling mighty punk the other day, and feared it had come back to haunt me, but so far no such evidence and i feel perfectly fine. but i just read that numbers are skyrocketing all around. oh no…..
xoxox
Back to your attire, darling: I am so very happy to join you wearing 33 yr old hemless shorts & 34 yr old raggy, holey tshirts. we are certainly not contributing to the world wide garbage dumps of clothes! your white garden will be beautiful. I’m almost in NYC for a long holiday weekend alone. Yes, i must go to a city of 8 million to b alone. Does any firstborn need any mothering or foodstuffs dropped off?
oh, sweetheart! i love that you go to NYC alone. the sweet child is burning the candles at every imaginable end and to be honest my heart is heavy about that.
may you have magnificent days loping that fair city, from tip to bottom, and river to river. wish i was still there to lope with you. (and to try to squeeze in even a teaspoon of mothering that firstborn of mine….) xoxo