In Three Years

The second year of a garden is like the eve, it is the eve of the third year of a garden. If you have ever bought a perennial plant from a nursery and popped it in the ground, the first year it kind of stays the same, puts on a bit of new growth. The second year it becomes a bit larger, fuller. But the third year, the third year is when the drama begins, the magic flows through. The plant is now full, strong, growing beyond what you thought possible.

When you put a fruit tree in the ground you will wait about three years for your fruit rewards. Three years after putting your first raspberry canes in the ground you will have a raspberry forest. Three years after planting asparagus and rhubarb you can have your first harvest. Three is the magic number and it is the same for a vegetable garden. Three years of planting and tending the soil will create a wonderland of beneficial insects, rich loose soil and pollinators swarming your flowers.

This is not our forever home but we are planting an orchard, sinking asparagus and strawberry crowns into the earth and planting for the future. I try to imagine the family who will own this home after us. They will see the clover in the yard and know that we do not use chemicals on our lawns. They will wander through the yard and see the peach, cherry, plum, pear and apple trees under planted with gorgeous perennial flowers. They will understand that part of what we created was for them.

I try to think that our next home, our hopefully forever home, is being tended right now by a family who knows we are coming someday too. It is a peaceful thought. I make it a point every day to live in each moment while still holding our dream, the one we are moving towards. Having a partner who is a dream weaver is a magical thing. He and I can dream together into the future while living our dream life together now. This second half of life that we are blessed to do together holds such possibility and joy.

I've felt a bit lost, not in a depressive way, just in that way you do when you don't 'fit' in your old clothes any more. Chloe and I were in a thrift store the other day and looked down at what I was wearing and I said, "I've lost my style." There was a disconnect happening for me so I decided that for each day of the following week I would wear one of my sundresses. I gardened in them, I filled wheelbarrows of mulch and moved them to new beds. I got sweaty and dirty and I felt so much more like myself.

My junior in high school reminded me that he was a freshman when the pandemic hit. Three years later, here we are. Three years later I imagine we are all looking to grow and expand and find ourselves again. I hope that we are all digging our roots down just a bit deeper to feel safe and present. I hope we are dreaming and living into each moment. I hope we are looking up more and more from our phones and connecting to what is right in front of us. I hope we are less focused on what we do or produce and more interested in how we feel, in our creations of beauty and magic, of the simple things that anchor us and tend us.

I imagine these next three years. My daughter will have graduated college and my son will have graduated high school. My fruit trees will be giving us gifts and I will be 50. In three years I think how much I can learn, how deeply I can connect to the earth, to my home, to myself. Each year in my relationship with Dave it becomes more solid and nourishing and true, I imagine the ease and the love three more years will give to us.

Then three years after that all our kids will have graduated high school and we will be on the next adventure of our lives, living into the stories and feeling the freedom of time. I wonder if our dreams will remain the same or how they might change. I wonder who we will be then, what my roses will look like and how many strawberries we will harvest.

In three years, a garden you begin today will be a flourishing magical place of peace and abundance. In three years who will we be? I can't wait to see.

Sending love to all of you,

H