Planting vegetables in the garden and harvesting fruit this spring has brought out the contemplative me. I suspect that just being outside for hours, working the soil, planting seeds and transplants, all the while hearing little else but bird song, makes everyone contemplative - which is reason enough to garden if you ask me, if one can do it. If one wants to.
I remember the previous two springs (after we moved to this property) providing similar contemplative opportunities, but for different reasons.
Two springs ago, I planted most of a garden unencumbered by the knowledge I'd spend the entire Memorial weekend nauseous and in some serious discomfort. After three days and nights of that, I finally conceded defeat and asked Greg to take me to the ER, which resulted in an emergency gall bladder surgery the next morning. That surgery (and recovery) was a bit more involved than anyone expected it to be, but within a couple of weeks I was feeling good enough to finish planting the garden. As I held my mid section, bending over to put seeds in the ground, even I questioned if that was the smartest thing to be doing. But the desire to plant our first vegetable garden at our new home was compelling.
Last spring was different. In late April and May, I knew some of what loomed ahead, and I needed something to distract me from worrying about what was still unknown. With the optimism of an early caught cancer diagnosis, I threw myself into activities that left me physically spent most nights. In May, Greg and I worked together on cleaning up some landscaping that was still lingering from the summer before. Youngest son lent a hand on that Memorial weekend helping us finish up the job.. After all that work, I decided I wanted to till the garden, enlarging the space by a foot or so on three sides.
I planted a few vegetables, but mostly I planted the garden with flower seeds. While I didn't know everything that was ahead, I anticipated that I'd not likely be capable of lifting a heavy canner come August to preserve tomatoes or pickles or green beans. But tending flowers seemed like a lovely thing to do as I healed from surgery.
With the flower garden put in, in the early weeks of June, we ate, gave away and froze lots of strawberries. I think I might have picked the last of the strawberries the day before my surgery. The night before surgery, I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up and sewed a pillow to protect my chest during the weeks of healing when I had to ride in a car and use a seatbelt. Why I waited until the night before surgery to make it, I haven't a clue - except that I can be a world-class procrastinator at times.
Having all these things to do was a gift. And having that pillow served me well for the rest of the summer as my chest healed.
My smile, I'm sure, can be attributed to still enjoying the benefits of a pain block.
While in the spring of 2023 I was wise enough to know I wouldn't be up to picking and preserving vegetables come late summer, I did imagine myself visiting the garden that summer and cutting fresh flowers. I envisioned bestowing bouquets on anybody who might need encouragement that year. It seemed like an antidote of sorts to facing my own scary stuff. Funny how things turn out sometimes. Nothing of any consequence ended up growing in the garden last summer. Not one single flower. But I was blessed weekly with fresh flowers from friends and family. The whole experience has inspired me to plant flowers again, but this time there will hopefully be an abundance of veggies to pick in July and August, too.
In all the outside work this spring, the thing that has been on my mind most is my recent diagnosis of osteoporosis of the spine.
Since last November, I have educated myself on the topic - to the point of annoying at least few people, I'm sure. And this month I met for the second time with an endocrinologist and my oncologist, and have been making some changes that will, hopefully, minimize further bone loss. We'll see this coming November when I get second DEXA scan. Am I worried about what the results of that scan will be? Yes. A bit. Am I trying to live like I'm not worried about it? Yes, because in addition to being an incredible procrastinator, I'm am also world-class compartmentalizer.
But I'm not living in denial. While I try to discipline myself to focus more on safe (and frankly, healthy) postures, I also try not to worry that some of the positions a gardener naturally gets into are not recommended for persons who have osteoporosis. All my medical peeps were pleased to hear I'm enjoying gardening this spring, but interestingly, no one talked about being careful doing it. Can I just say again how seriously thankful I am for the internet and all the resources available to us today.
A year ago, I was pleased (no, I was actually pretty proud) that I could still bend forward and touch my toes with little effort. I still can, but my pride is all but shriveled up now knowing that this is not a recommended thing to do if one has osteoporosis in the spine. This spring, as I've bent over to pick strawberries (which is the most comfortable position for me), I consider over and over again the gamble I am taking rounding my back for that task. At this point, the last of the strawberries have been picked, and I've managed to not hurt myself, so I have another year at least before I need to think about that specific task again.
Coming through all that last year held, I've come to recognize that all of life is a gamble. On some level we all know our choices come with risks, but most of us don't count the costs of the risks we take on a daily basis. We give little thought to the potential bad outcomes of our choices. We go happily through our days with no worries or even thoughts about what is going on inside our cells, our bones, our vital organs. As long as one can live that way, I consider it gloriously good to embrace it. Even being more aware of the gambles I take, I consider it good to live life as free as possible from worry about all the "what ifs".
While I now live with a greater awareness of the gambles I regularly take (in this context, the positions I get myself into), I try to not let that awareness worry me into being a scaredy cat.
At the moment, I feel like I'm living in a middle land - where the brain understands and sort of counts the costs, but the heart or the will hasn't quite figured out what do with the information that fires in my brain with every wrong move. Retraining myself into new postures for doing old activities, I think must involve a fair amount of synaptic activity before new ways of doing things become second nature.
This is what's in my head this week. Some loosely connected thoughts about osteoporosis, being relieved the strawberry picking has come to an end, glad the garden is in, and that I have a bit of a reprieve before anything else needs harvesting.
That reminds me... we have peaches this year! I thinned them out a couple of weeks ago, and now they look like they'll be manageable - if they make it to ripeness without becoming bird or bug fodder.
Until the peaches ripen, and the vegetable garden needs more attention, I'm contemplating what's next. I'm assessing my need for more canning jars and lids, will soon go to work again on hopefully perfecting low or no-sugar jam, and I'm contemplating sewing some tops I recently bought fabric for.
But first, this evening we have friends coming over with Chinese takeout. I've been too pooped the last month to think about being hospitable, so tonight feels like a nice change of pace. With the calendar turning to June tomorrow, it feels like a new beginning.
I love new beginnings...
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
this person is a new creation;
the old things passed away;
behold new things have come.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)