Just as my garden is made of other gardens, so too my garden writing — I have been reading folks talking about gardens even before I had my own garden. May Sarton’s books about her little house in Vermont gave me the idea that gardening had emotional and intellectual relevance, which I had not noticed yet ( I was about 20). Jamaica Kincaid, Thalassa Cruso, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, bell hooks — writing about continuity, and place, how plants get us to move them all around the world.

Right now I’m planning to move some plants, and it’s an extraordinary comfort, a deep-in-my-bones reminder that I’m in a different story now, with agency and resources. The willow and self-heal and purple sage that volunteered in this yard get to come along to a new one. The pineapple sage Bill grew from a neighbor’s cutting will be so happy to go in the ground so it can get properly huge. The sages I bought on my last trip to Annie’s*, which seemed like a possible folly, will now (WE HOPE!) have homes next to NyttHus where they can be delightful xeriscaping.

I’m bringing a huge, healthy jade that we rehabilitated. Bill went to pick up some free pots and a very sad jade was on offer as well. Its glossy leaves and wee buds attest that it’s currently thriving — it’s nearly to my shoulder! It was so hard to grow jade in Brooklyn — this level of success would be impossible without infrastructure, whereas here, it looks easy. My thriving might look easy to an outsider, a newcomer, and yet every second of contentment I’m able to appreciate these days was very hard won. I know with appalling specificity how terrible one’s life can become; what a joy to contemplate the opposite. Some plants, and fish, are limited in size by their immediate environments, but when they are given abundant resources, they can really take off. I wonder what it might be like, to live in a house with so many rooms, so much space, so much opportunity to grow into who I am, and who we are. Who will I be, with almost no artificial constraints? Myself, just more so, is my guess and plan. For as long as we get this grand chance, may Bill and I be able to wring as much happiness and satisfaction from it as humanly possible.

*[Post title from Secret Sisters’ sweet song, “Late Bloomer” — “It doesn’t matter when you bloom / It matters that you do”]

* Annie’s Annuals, RIP and we hope someday LONG LIVE ANNIE’S as it rises from the ashes?