Happy May friends,
I think I was coming up on mile seven of the 15 I had to run that day (I was training for a marathon the last few months but more on that later) and I was getting bored. Maybe you think those who run always look like this:
But I’m here to let you know doing anything for three or more hours gets boring fast. Forget body endurance, it’s my mind that faces the greatest test.
Anyway, I think my desperation for anything interesting other than the sound of my own feet allowed me to watch the robin for so long. That and I’m a super slow runner. Time was on my side.
The robin had her head down in the grass when I spotted her tell-tale bright orange belly. Her head bobbed up and down, her beak tugging at something in the ground with the energy of her whole being. Breakfast is going to be tasty if the worm is putting on that much of a fight, I thought. Finally, with one last tug she bounced back on the grass before lifting her wings and flying into the air. If a bird could carry herself with pride, this robin did. But as she flew in front of me, I noticed the treasure in her mouth was not a juicy worm but a single piece of long grass, waving like a delicate ribbon behind her. I guess it wasn’t breakfast for which she fought, it was a nest.
This took me by surprise. She went through all that work just for that? A measly piece of grass? Doesn’t she know how many more of those she must find to build a nest? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to gather up a whole chunk of grass at one go? And from the distance she flew it appears her nest is quite far away. Why that grass there? Why not one closer to home? I know I’m not a nest building specialist. I just wonder if she thought this all through. Perhaps she could use a project manager.
At this point you might be understanding my level of boredom. I’m anthropomorphizing a robin. But because I was on mile 7 and not mile 14.5, I could either slowly count down the miles and minutes, or I could search for a learning lesson. And you know I’m not one to walk away (or run in this case) from a nature metaphor.
What I got to thinking was perhaps I know little of nest building, but I do know about effort for the sake of it. I know what it’s like to build a story, to pull words from the ground one by one with all the strength of my being, to fly away with them only to have to return again and again until it is just right. I know about finished products, too, the ones I share, the ones that get attention, that get publication. The world sees the completed nests of story and song and rarely the grit and determination that make up its foundation.
But I know. I know how they are created. I know about the time and the struggle. I know how that nest started, with one word, one long strand at a time. But like the way I first looked at this robin, I forget to celebrate the effort.
It’s been a month since I ran that 15 mile training run. It’s also been a month since I stopped my training. I had not registered for a marathon race, I was just doing it for fun (what a ridiculous sentence.) Mostly I wanted something to work towards. The idea came to me at the beginning of 2021 when I was still feeling hopeless and frozen (sometimes literally). I wanted the control of something I could complete, on my own, without the fear of a pandemic getting in the way. I wanted to feel strong. In so many ways I didn’t feel strong anymore.
But when I got to the end of that 15 miles, I just didn’t want to keep running. I could think of many things I would rather be doing for three or more hours (like writing for one thing!) and at the time, running no longer felt like one of them. Maybe things just felt a little more hopeful than they did at the beginning of the year. Maybe I didn’t need to prove myself anymore. Either way, I decided I was done with marathon training.
What I didn’t realize until I started to write this four weeks later was that like the robin, and the writing, I forgot to celebrate the process. Because I didn’t reach the end product, 26.2 miles, it was as if all the effort in the 10 weeks of training before that was for nothing. 15 miles is still a really big deal. So is 10 and 6 and 3. So is running when icicles grow on your eyelashes and through humidity so thick you practically swim. So is running before the children wake up or while pushing a stroller. Those are all milestones, all strands of building strength, that matter.
Be it nest building, story building, or strength building, every strand we fight for matters. Let’s normalize that for each other. Let’s remember to talk about what we’re working on, what we’re pushing towards, not just the end goals but the in betweens. I’ll go first: I ran 15 miles y’all! I wrote a few sentences in an essay I’ve submitted many times and been rejected for! I went to the dentist and contacted a therapist! Whew. That felt good. Now your turn. Tell me about the in-between parts of your life. I want to celebrate you!
Cheers!
Rachel
This month we’re hanging out in the garden. That’s where you’ll find me most days. I start in the morning coffee in hand, bare feet padding across dewy grass looking for new growth. I roam the yard looking for new spots for crowded plants, studying the light and how it moves. I greet the arrival of bumblebees and butterflies like I’m hosting a party. I end the day plucking an edible flower to pop into my cocktail and wait for the sun to dip low behind the house. This is the first home I have ever had a yard of my own and I love her like another child.
I’m writing this month’s collective from my front yard sitting area after putting the kids to bed. The sun was still aglow when I came out here but now I see the sky has turned to sherbet colors. It’s been just about the most beautiful spring, warm enough for things to grow but not rushing too quickly to summer. I can smell the lilacs that just burst by our front door and the solar lights in my neighbor’s yard are casting a glow I’m envious of (googling solar twinkle lights.) It only makes sense for me to center this month’s collective on garden inspiration.
Square Foot Garden.
For the past three summers I have been a Square Foot Gardener. Sometimes I think I talk about this method so much people might be sick of me. But then I went looking for a blog post on the subject and I could only find this brief mention. So consider this my neon, John Hancock sized co-sign for the Square Foot Gardening system. It is beautiful, organized, successful, diverse, and lazy which basically describes how I want to be in life. This isn’t a garden to feed my family for a year. But it is a garden to feed my senses and my soul. That is all I require in life. If you have a little space and want to know the joy that comes from putting a seed in the ground in April to a salad on your plate in July, then you should give this system a try. I will also live this final note (this really should have been a blog post), follow the full plan. Use the soil the author suggests. It feels like a commitment, and isn’t dirt just dirt? Trust me on this, as a frequent corner cutter and rule breaker, just do what he sees. You will be glad you did.
The New Arbor.
Ever since reading The Secret Garden as a child, I wanted to have a secret garden of my own. To me every secret garden has a tunneled door, so this year I am creating one. Trellised arbors are expensive. So after lots of research, I found one that would work for us made simple with rebar, concrete mat, and zip-ties from the hardware store. It also helped that we had my sister’s truck to use for hauling 10 ft. rebar. I love how the rusted metal looks against the growing plants, as if it’s been their for years. We are growing Scarlett Runner beans and Sweet Peas over it and I’m hoping it gives me that secret garden look I dream of! Stay tuned.
The Secret Garden Book.
Speaking of The Secret Garden, this book is a treasure. There are interactive pages like maps and flaps and pop ups making the story come alive. It is the perfect book to read aloud in the spring and summer and even more special to have in a collection. There are four others in this interactive book collection like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid and Alice in Wonderland. I think I want to get all five.
Drinking with Chickens.
I’ve become obsessed with this cocktail book, and account. I mean, chickens are adorable and I have big empty nest dreams to become a chicken mama. But mostly I love the concept of this book. Every cocktail she makes comes from something in her garden. I am so inspired by the creations and adding more edible flowers to my garden this year. Follow along at Rachel on the Rocks to see all the edible flower cocktail content. Like this one from the crabapples tree blossoms.
Baking with Flowers.
And if you want to take your edible flower creations beyond the drink, this pastry artist does amazing things with edible flowers. I have even learned so much about things I didn’t know you could eat. Like Creeping Charlie, a weed gardener’s HATE here but is so lovely and yummy in a cocktail. Who knew?
The Perfect Salad Dressing.
Salad is the first thing that pops up in my garden. This salad dressing will forever be my favorite. I’ve long been a “I will only eat a pile of raw vegetables if there is a creamy dressing all over it” kind of gal. But this dressing is creamy without the creamy stuff. Perfection.
Words from the garden.
If it wasn’t obvious enough, words about nature and all the lessons we learn from them is my jam. There have been some great ones I have enjoyed lately with nature connections.
This poem about rain is a sestina poem which I am just learning about and the way she pulled it together gave me all of the head explosion emojis.
And this poem about fireflies, which was just one of 100, and I hope more, poems Lorren wrote for 100 days making it difficult for me to choose just one.
I finished the book Writers and Lovers by Lily King and I’m all the way blown over by how beautiful it was. One of my favorite metaphors in the story was this one about bees. She often compared it to what anxiety feels like. But in the end, when she is better (sorry to give it away, sometimes you just need to know people get better) she uses the bees to describe her hope “For a moment all my bees have turned to honey.” That line alone made me go all mush, a bit like honey.
And a few from me…
On the Most.Beautiful.Spring.Ever.
And these two on Memories and Ted Lasso have nothing to do with nature metaphors but I enjoyed writing them so that feels important enough to share. Celebrate the effort, right?
And one more thing…
a quote from Writers and Lovers that reminded me so much of this celebration of the in-betweens.
“Painters, I told myself, though I know nothing about painting, don't start at one side of the canvas and work meticulously across to the other side. They create an underpainting, a base of shape, of light and dark. They find the composition slowly, layer after layer. This was only my first layer, I told myself as we turned the corner, the dog pulling toward something ahead, his nails loud on the sidewalk. It's not supposed to be good or complete. It's okay that it feels like a liquid not a solid, a vast spreading goo I can't manage, I told myself. It's okay that I'm not sure what's next, that it might be something unexpected.” Lily King, Writers and Lovers.