Mother's Day

Mother’s Day again.

In my garden I wear the oversized ladybug rain boots that she gave me so long ago, well before I cut her out of my life, which was nine years ago now, so they must be twelve at least. She bought them for me to wear in the rain though they're too large to walk effectively in over a distance, but I keep them by the backdoor because they're so easy to slip into for my visits to my garden. 

She loved to garden too, and she was good at it. Our front and back yards back home in Seattle were a sculptural accomplishment of decorative plants, all carefully planned and tended. She obsessed over plants, fixated on acquiring new ones and mapping out new landscaping. Wherever we went, no matter how late we were running, she had to inspect the nearby neighborhood gardens for inspiration and evaluation, which was exasperating at the time but now I get it because I do it too.

Her gardens were decorative, built up tall to obscure our house from the outside world. They were elaborate and dense, a carefully constructed wall to hide the pandemonium inside our home from the outside and give us something beautiful to distract us from within the chaos. They were the one space where she had full control, where things would grow in line with her concept. In her garden her actions made sense, nobody disobeyed or rebelled from her plans. She didn’t have to yell, she didn’t have to terrorize, she didn’t have to kidnap her kids for a couple days in a hotel room without contact  to teach her husband a lesson or threaten to kill herself to guilt her children into expressing the smallest form of affection to her. In the garden, among her plants, she was needed, she was wanted.

My plants are simple, practical, laid out in orderly rows so they’ll be easy to harvest when they’re big enough to eat. Watching them grow fills me with such a soothing happiness, every micro change they undergo fascinates me and I document it all through photos and illustrations so those moments will stay with me when I need them later. I wander through it in the mornings, I invite my friends over to visit it, I water it in the evenings. My garden is for sharing, my garden is for healing, my garden is for producing food that will be eaten by my loved ones and me. 

There’s so much I ran away from in my mom, but she’s still deep in me too. I try to let go of the things that harm me, harm the people I love, and hold on to the things that bring pleasure, the things that nourish. My oversized ladybug rain boots make me smile, my vegetable garden makes me happy.

I hope my mom is happy too.

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♥ I very respectfully request people please do not comment on this post ♥ Thank you so, so much for letting me have a space to barf up my messy feelings ♥