The war is my To-Do list, and, lately, I’ve been waging extreme peace. Instead of picking battles, I’ve been letting the fights come to me, if I can’t absolutely avoid them. Even my favorite “battle”, my garden, is only being fought because it’s the beginning of May, and this may be the last time this summer I have a jump on the weeds.
For the last 13 summers, I’ve had a decent sized garden – about 1600 square feet of beds or rows, depending on how artistic seven-year-old Thing2 and I are feeling when we lay out the veggies. We get a lot of food out of our good earth, but thanks to the wild raspberry bush that apparently escaped from a Little Shop of Horrors set to squat at my garden gate and the weeds that begin to invade rows and paths alike, we also get a big mess by the end of the summer.
This year, in an homage to middle age, I’ve decided not to not climb that hill, but rather to move it to a smaller, more manageable spot.
Thing2 was not happy with the announcement – he loves to have a hand in the garden design. I could try trotting out a cliche for him about how good things come in small packages. I’m hoping, however, when August gives us a slightly smaller crop and a lot less work, he’ll figure out that sometimes victory is as much about identifying the goal as it is about expending blood, tears, and sweat.
For me it’s a few months of fresh picked salad without taking on a third or fourth career.
