Yup, that’s what they give me. Thank you Smokey Robinson for the sound track that matches my emotions each time I wander past my sunflowers or zinnias or my ripening Sweet 100’s. My dawn and dusk inspection ritual is like my own private treasure hunt - an art gallery of live paintings that change on the daily. My Monet moments. My more joy.

My maternal grandfather was an avid gardener who lived well into his nineties. He often wondered aloud why “god hadn’t taken him yet”. I know why. He kept being lured to live another season. Another harvest. It was where he found peace in his day. Where he went to reconcile his life, his joys and possibly even his demons. Did he talk to his Dahlias? Did he ask them for advice? For forgiveness? Was his garden the one place he found joy?

As I get older, I find myself talking to my plants. I am certain I brought a new Spruce tree back to life this past spring by coaxing it with my voice. It was not looking hopeful early on. Winter had been harsh and it was planted late the previous autumn. Thinking it had not had time to firmly establish, I hovered over him every few days, gently cheering him on. There appeared to be some life left in him, so, I encouraged him. “C’mon little guy, you can do it - here, have some more water.” In all honesty, I did not expect him to make it. His needles were dropping, his bones becoming more visible with each visit. He stood alone, a circle of rocks fencing him in - protection against the ride-on mower. As spring was coming to an end and summer fast approaching, I decided it might be time to uproot what was left of his dying carcass and make the mowing easier.

But then, a miracle occurred. Shovel in hand, I headed out toward him, feeling sad about the task I was about to perform and that is when I had to rub my eyes, lean in for a closer look and take notice of the emerging flush of soft pale green needles sprouting from the tips of his branches. “You’re ALIVE!”, I shouted to the sky and the startled Blue Jays perched in the ancient apple tree nearby. “You did it! You pulled through!” More joy.

And then there is the anticipation. Talk about foreplay. The tiny emerging buds. The days and sometimes weeks of swelling before the explosive orgy of blooms that take your breath away like that first true love on repeat every growing season. More joy.  

As addicted to love as I may have been in my younger years, I have a new vice in my later life. Give me a seed or a sapling and I’ll plant that baby in some nutrient rich soil and watch it grow with all the enthusiasm of a pent up opium addict in a field of poppies. The satisfaction of watching something become stronger and healthier and more beautiful over time is as rewarding as motherhood… without the backtalk.  More joy.

In recent decades the emphasis on one’s purpose in life has been the focus of nearly every self-help bestseller ever published. I have surely read my fair share of them, from Tolle to the Tao Te Ching and I can assure you that if you are still grappling with your own quest for purpose and meaning in your life, try creating or observing life in nature. Immerse yourself. It always gives back - be it food for other living things or the simple act of being beautiful - a subject for painters or photographers or poets.

Even as I write this piece, I sense inspiration has departed, so I just took a walk, past the woods, down to the dock to check on my stump full of life. The nasturtiums are blooming, the frogs are resting on the lily pads and turtles are sunning themselves on our fallen Elm and tiny schools of fish are darting in and out of the shade of underwater grasses and and other-worldly looking organic matter. A flock of geese made a noisy landing while I watered a fern hanging in a tree. It has been recovering all spring and summer under the shade of an old Cedar from a long winter spent indoors, not unlike most Canadians desperate for fresh air and sunshine. It seems to be liking the  lake water I have been administering these last few weeks. Several new tender green fronds have appeared as I had hoped. More joy.  A few deep breaths of the gentle breeze drifting off the bay and I am refreshed and ready to compose again.

It is easy to forget the world living here at Kyeema North. It made life during the pandemic far easier for me than for many people. I was not stuck indoors or worried about spreading it or catching it by simply going to work each day. I embraced my natural instinct toward introversion and counted my lucky stars. The only concerts I attended were cricket choruses and songbird symphonies with the occasional bellowing band of Trumpeter Swans passing by. In the winter months I grew Arugula on my window sills and waited for spring when I could start all over again - another season of growing and watching and waiting for the greatest show on earth. More joy.

Oddly enough, writing about the joy of nature and gardening gives me a sense of purpose. I was not one of those people who knew from the get-go what they wanted to devote their life to like a doctor or a musician or a nun (definitely not that last one), but I have always liked writing and it was usually a component of any job I ever had. I wrote press releases, marketing copy, design proposals, you name it, I could write it, but it never engaged me like this does. Perhaps the lack of deadlines and the freedom of subject matter gives me the creative jolt I crave. Combine that with contemplating what I might write while I am tending to my gardens or strolling through the forest and suddenly it seems like a purpose. Can my words and my experience nudge another soul? Inspire a depressed mind? Plant a hopeful seed for the broken-hearted?

Does my writing offer a free service, in service?

All I can say is if it does…

More Joy.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=more+love+smokey+robinson

I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.
 - Henry David Thoreau -


There was a house we used to pass by on our neighbourhood walks when we lived in Granville. It made me feel sad. Tragedy and loneliness hung heavy over it and around it like a thick rain cloud. It stood on stumps. The only thing beneath the house was a standard rubbish bin and a 50’s style kitchen chair, the once shiny chrome finish, rusted now, the grey vinyl seat worn, sunken with wear and time. The house was painted white but the years had weathered the siding leaving it dirty and dull. The windows were bare; not a blind or old cafe curtain to block the sun or provide privacy.

With the windows open to the prying eyes of people like me passing by, you could see there was little in the way of furniture inside. A vintage dresser (duchess as they are oft referred to in Australia), could be seen through one of the bedroom windows, the surface empty and the mirror reflecting the barren walls. A chain-link fence surrounded the rectangular corner lot, containing the melancholy it oozed like a cemetery houses the dead. The grass that was mostly weeds was the only nod to landscaping. There wasn’t a single tree or shrub or garden bed. The lawn got mowed infrequently, but at least it did happen from time to time. A galvanized tin shed at the back of the lot must have housed the Victor (Aussie speak for lawnmower). Although there was room for a car, there was no evidence that one existed - the overgrown tracks leading to the entrance unused in decades. There was no air conditioner, so on the many hot and steamy Queensland days and nights, the windows were opened wide.
There were no fly screens.

Mick and I would often play a little game trying to guess what kind of person lived in such a house and why. My guess was always a version of the same theme. An older man in his 70’s or 80’s, a widower, depressed and alone. He had decided many years ago after losing the love of his life to cancer days after they married, that he would never allow himself to be happy again. He got rid of nearly everything inside the house (that they had just built and moved into), never planted a tree or a flower, and spent every evening sitting in the dark waiting for life to pass him by until the day he died and could be with her again. Any joy he had imagined for his life dissipated when she died leaving him alone at 27.

Mick wasn’t so stuck on the same theme, as he had actually seen the old man sitting alone under the house from time to time. He never engaged passersby or responded to a wave. He did think my intuition had some merit though. I would sometimes wonder aloud if I should drop off a casserole or a banana loaf on his unpainted wooden steps leading to his door. Would it cheer him up? Or, would he be annoyed? If I trespassed onto his property, would I end up with a butt full of buckshot? Mick reckoned he might be a miserable old sod with a disdain for people and especially someone trying to force kindness upon him. Maybe he was content to wallow in his misery. Best leave well enough alone.

I couldn’t shake the idea that this person was desperately sad. It is entirely possible that I was projecting my own idea of sadness onto this unknown homeowner. I would surely be suicidal if I lived like that. Not a single living thing outside my back stoop. Not a pot of pansies or a climbing vine or some fresh basil to snip. Not a faithful hound or an indifferent feline or a hanging bird feeder. Not a wee spot of shade to sit and drink a glass of cold lemonade, ice cubes clinking with each long cool sip. Nothing but the walls around me, the relentless Queensland sun baking the tin roof all day and the mossies flying in those open windows at night, driving me to the brink of insanity with their high pitched buzzing near my ear just as I was about to fall asleep.

This wasn’t a home. It was a prison cell. A life without life.

There has been much research in recent years about the secret life of trees and how they communicate in a fascinating complex underground relationship to one another. In his book - The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, by Peter Wohlleben we learn that there is a sophisticated social, almost intelligent communal interconnectedness taking place underground in the root systems of forests.

The trees are dependent on one another to survive and thrive. I have not personally done any scientific research on the human connection to trees but I can assure you I know intuitively that I feel a profound need to be near trees and plants. Forest “bathing” may be a new concept but it certainly isn’t new to me. A walk in the woods is as therapeutic for me now as it was when I was a child (before I knew it was providing therapy…or a bath).

Maybe a few trees nearby could have made a difference to that lonely man and his apparent life without life. His isolated house propped up on dead stumps left him ungrounded and disconnected from any living thing. Hell, in times of frequent drought, even his weedy lawn would have been parched and brown - a reflection of its caretaker. There was nothing to feed him. Nothing to embrace him. He lived barricaded from nature - separate from the the energetic life force that may just have been what he needed to get off that rusty chair and out of that sombre dwelling from time to time.

It seems unlikely his life or his surroundings will change any time soon. The happiest day of his life may end up being the day he himself returns to the earth. He may find his purpose was never about living, but rather about dying and becoming an energy source for a new life.

For his sake, I hope that’s true.


#lifeforce #connection #trees

tt
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
-Albert Einstein-

We have what appear to be a clump of three dead Elm trees teetering on the water’s edge between our two docks. The one wedged in the middle is dead for certain, the only thing holding him in place are the two nearly dead ones flanking him. I don’t know why I have assigned a gender (him) to the three of them but likely because they seem big and gnarly and masculine, like the type of man that I would cross the street to avoid.

For five winters now, we keep expecting them to fall into the water after a storm or heavy snowfall, but they consistently surprise us with their stubborn attachment to their birthplace - the earth that roots them and continues to feed them. They do seem to have lost their ability to flourish as the two that remain somewhat alive, only produce a minimum of leaf growth on a couple of branches - the only obvious sign of life they present to the world.

Why won’t they give up? Their trunks are full of holes, large and small, created by woodpeckers. The bases of their trunks have been whittled by beavers. Most of their upper branches have been snapped off by wicked winds over time. And yet, each spring, just when we think the previous winter has laid them to rest, they prove us wrong and sprout some leaves. I never really thought of myself as a “tree-hugger”, but I have become more and more respectful of nature and the environment in the last couple of decades, so until these statuesque Elms are well and truly dead, I will leave them be.

The thing is, they are an eyesore along our shoreline and they actually pose a threat to one of the docks as they lean in such a manner, that they could land on it, possibly destroying it, if and when they give way. If assisted suicide were a viable option for trees, I would support their choice.

My father is an old Elm tree now, the only thing keeping him alive are medications and some ancient inner desire to live no matter the impact on the people around him. Perhaps this sounds harsh but it is the reality of his life now.

He is incapable of caring for himself in any way. He cannot walk or talk or feed himself. He mostly sleeps and when he is awake for short periods of time, he cannot communicate. His existence is reliant on the other Elm trees flanking him. Namely, my mother and the many caring nurses and health care workers at the full time care home where he withers away. Why won’t he give up?

This is not a unique scenario. Countless families around the world have been on this gruelling journey. Watching a relative, once a vibrant, functioning being, lying in a bed with nothing left to give and no quality of life whatsoever seems inhumane. I have advised my own friends and family to just hold a pillow over my head and help me along to the next world if I end up like that. With any luck, I will know when my time is coming and take care of that business myself.

I am not afraid to die but I am terrified of not living.

Perhaps it is time for me to have a chat with the dying Elms - a planned farewell ritual of sorts. I could get some Sacred Sage sticks for smudging and dance around the base of their trunks on a full moon and chant some wise words to guide them into the next life. Would this be the permission they need to move on? I really grapple with this - being dead while you are still alive. Why the prolonged and agonizing departure, reminiscent of that one person you know who takes forever to say goodbye at the front door, like bloody Columbo, his cigar raised slightly,…”and one more thing”. Ugh! Just go home already!

My father’s time has come. The Elm trees time has come.

Giddy up.




#deathanddying #assistedsuicide #lifeisfortheliving

 w
At its root, perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success.
-Michael Law-

Perfectionism is a hard habit to break. I speak from experience. It wasn’t always a negative trait. In fact, it boded well for most of my working life in interior design. Those magazine worthy spaces didn’t just happen naturally. I didn’t just back up a truck, dump some fancy Italian furniture and accessories into an empty white room and call it a day.  As anyone with an eye for detail will tell you, it takes hours and days and weeks (sometimes months or years) to plan and gather and create perfect rooms and homes, often turning lemons into lemonade or in my case, a blank canvas into a Picasso.

The problem with being a perfectionist is it is a recipe for burn out because eventually you learn it is impossible. Life is messy. Moving from the city to the country has revealed this reality with all the subtlety of a bull in a China shop. Or, in fitting with the landscape here, the fall of a century old Elm tree crashing into the water mere inches from our dock. I was preparing dinner one evening in March while it was doing its best to go “out like a lion” when I heard what I can only describe as the sound a slap of a Brontosaurus tail into our lily pond. It was a cloudy, starless night so I did not discover the source of this mystery whooshing sound until morning.

We knew the tree had been dead for as long as we have lived here and probably for many years prior so it wasn’t a surprise when its roots and the surrounding soil holding it in place finally gave way with one giant gust of wind that stormy night. We had spent many evenings dockside contemplating the future of that tree. Can we cut it down? Are we allowed to? Do we hire a tree service? It really was an eyesore…to us. But if you were to ask the Pileated Woodpeckers, squirrels, chipmunks, minks and beavers their humble opinions, well, they just would have called it “home”. Clearly they hadn’t inherited the perfectionism gene.

A funny thing had started to happen to me after we moved here to Kyeema North. Mother Nature was softening my hard edges - my need to trim and sculpt my surroundings until every blade of grass was even and weeds were poisoned and trees were pruned to resemble my version of what a tree should look like. It was as unnatural as Michael Jackson’s nose or Lisa Rinna’s lips. Had I thought for a moment to consult Mother Nature for her opinion, she would have told me in no uncertain terms that it was already perfect, as were the celebrity faces. The woodpeckers were hastily evicted without notice - the stores of nuts carefully stashed in its many holes were cast into the muddy shallows and the curve of the trunk created a perch at the top end poking up out of the water like the masthead on a pirate ship.  

Come spring, after the ice melted,  it became a much loved turtle resort. Lining themselves along the trunk like shiny oiled up beach babes, sunning themselves, these new tenants were in Paradise. I imagined they would draw straws each morning to see who got to sit on the tip - masthead “maiden of the day”. Some days, frogs would share their new found beach. Whenever I would approach the dock, the entire lot of them would decide it was time for a swim. Splashing sounds would fill the air as I  frantically tried to get a photo before they all disappeared into their murky pool. This is how they have been spending their spring and summer here at Kyeema North or “Camp Long Stump” as it was called in the brochure.

They had me now. How could I dare take all this away from them?

The tree would remain. Rest in peace right where it was. No one was going to accuse me of ripping away a frog and turtle habitat. Still, the view of that massive upturned Elm root system clotted with mud and clumps of embedded rocks was, from my POV, pretty nasty looking - evil almost. So our dockside chats became creative idea sessions on what we could do to improve the “curb appeal” as we descended the rickety steps to the dock. There was talk of building a wooden screen around the ugliest section and thoughts of a chainsaw sculpture but apparently all that rock and soil are bad for the chain and wouldn’t that be leading us into “unnatural” territory?

As time passed and we had moved on to more pressing matters, we stopped thinking about the unsightly stump. After awhile, like our slowly expanding waistlines, we stopped noticing it so much. By May, it had started to sprout. Not the tree itself, but organic life began appearing in all the nooks and crannies of the bark on the trunk and the roots - anywhere a wayward seed landed, it grew. The dead Elm had become a breeding ground for lost souls. That’s when I decided to help it along and add some seeds of my own. Prettier seeds (always the decorator). I wasn’t sure if the thin layers of soil that remained on the root system would be enough of a foundation for them, but sure enough, now that gnarly old uprooted Elm tree is a natural flower pot - the decaying wood a source of nourishment. The Nasturtium seeds I planted are beginning to blossom giving the fallen Elm a proper burial with flowers beginning to form a garland around its exposed raw roots.

We don’t always have the opportunity to see the circle of life as clearly as this. We are witnessing this  dead Elm tree - feeding new life so obviously, as though his fall wasn’t really his last swan song. If he could talk he might say, “I may be ancient and dead but there is an incarnation happening here. In my last life, my purpose was to provide shade and a place for birds to perch and I prevented erosion. I was busy. This time around, I am a food source and a resting spot for frogs and turtles and a throne for
Great Blue Herons.  I may not look perfect but I am still useful.”

In my previous life, It is unlikely I would have seen a fallen tree in the same way. I see many things differently now. Dandelions are no longer a pesky weed - they are food for bees. Shoreline shrubs are not scruffy tangles to be slashed to the ground - they prevent erosion. The wildflowers in the meadow are butterfly magnets. I’m not just getting older, I’m gathering wisdom. Living in harmony with the flora and fauna that surrounds me has required me to leave my perfectionistic tendencies behind in the city. You won’t find any manicured lawns or potted topiary trees flanking the front door here at Kyeema North. And I have gladly traded in my Stuart Weitzman pumps for Birkenstocks but…

As the ultimate queen of perfection, Martha Stewart, would say, (and I agree)

“It’s a good thing.”

Freedom is the Oxygen of the Soul.
-Moshe Dayan-


Planting seeds indoors got underway in late March this year at Kyeema North. While shopping in the local Home Hardware for my seeding soil, I came across these kits that included tiny coir pots, a holder and a transparent lid (a nod to greenhouse glass) that seemed clever. In past winters, I have used whatever small pots I have stashed under my potting bench but this seemed far easier and so I bit.

It was all going swimmingly and by early May my Zinnias and Beets and assorted other plants were ready to harden off and get into the ground. One of the handy features of these coir seedling pots was the claim that you could just plant the whole organic thing right into the ground without removing the pot. I was hesitant, the experienced gardener in me, suspicious of such ideas, so I met the instructions halfway and cut off the bottom of each potted seedling before tucking it into the soil, giving the roots a quicker exit route.

Shortly thereafter, I was out of town for a week, leaving Mick in charge of the watering and plant-sitting. When I got home, eager to check the growth of the plants in my beds, I was disappointed to see not much had happened. In fact the seedlings looked positively scrawny. Hmmmff, thought I, he couldn’t have watered them enough! Not knowing for sure and not wanting to accuse him of neglecting my “babies”, I immediately got on top of their need for moisture and let another week go by.

Every morning, as most obsessed gardeners do, I did my inspection rounds, much like an expectant mother standing sideways in the mirror to monitor my growing bump. These daily rounds were fraught with disappointment. My seedlings were not performing at all. Had I planted too early? Did my soil need amending? Too much water? Too little water? Had my green thumb turned brown?

Three weeks passed and now my garden was behind. I started looking at photos comparing previous season’s growth patterns. Was it the weather? I knew the answer to that question. No. Maybe some sort of grub had been chewing on the roots. I decided to uproot a seedling to get a better look at what was happening beneath the surface and that’s when I discovered what the problem had been all along. The coir pots! The seedling’s root system was not penetrating the coir walls. It was too thick and too hard and despite all the watering, was not softening. These damn pots  were choking my tiny green babies to death. I was livid. Why had I tried this new method? Why had I not stuck with years of tried and true techniques? My babies could not spread their wings.

What little growth had taken place was straight down into the soil, like a root on a mission to the opposite side of the world. (If I keep digging mom, where will I end up? China, of course.) The problem with roots headed straight to China from Canada, with blinders on, is there are no stops along the way to check out things in other places, like say, Polar Bears in Hudson Bay or hiking up Machu Picchu, or watching the sunrise at The Haleakala Crater. Nope. Those roots weren’t developing - they were bolting through life without any detours.

The healthiest plants and shrubs and trees spread their roots far and wide, feeling and touching and seeing the world beyond their upright appearance, like a worldy, well-travelled soul. My seedlings had no chance of becoming fully formed, flourishing adults. Their life experience was stunted, one-dimensional and closed off to adventure and learning.

I had to free them!  Trowel in hand, I started to release my beloved Zinnias, digging them up, unearthing their tiny fragile and tender root systems - stripping away the coir prisons that were  holding them back. I undressed the  Sunflowers, the Castor Beans, the Nasturtiums…all the garden beds were uprooted and replanted naked and unencumbered by the restrictive walls that were holding them back from the life they deserved.

After the carnage, I looked at the scattered and torn coir sheaths laying askew about the edges of my beds- dried remnants of a botanical authoritarian regime, and, panting, wiped the sweat from my brow. For over an hour, I had waged a war against an enemy I had not been able to see until I dug deeper.

Since the replanting, my garden is thriving.

I won’t be fooled again.